The three impostors or The transmutations

THE THREE IMPOSTORS

\

The Three Impostors

or The Transmutations

by Arthur Machen

TRANSLATOR OF « I/HEPTAMERON * AND

«LE MOYEN DE PARVENIR * } AUTHOR

OF <THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY*

AND 'THE GREAT GOD PAN'

Boston: Roberts Bros., 1895
London: John Lane, Vigo St.

Copyright, 1895,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

All Rights Reserved.

n

SSnitoersttg

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROLOGUE 7

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS 12

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT ' . 23

NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY 28

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER 53

NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL 65

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 122

THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 137

NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID 140

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 148

NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER 155

STRANGE OCCURENCE IN CLERKENWELL 182

HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH SPECTACLES . 190

ADVENTURE OF THE DESERTED RESIDENCE 2OQ

THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

PKOLOGUE.

Mr. Joseph Walters is going to stay the
night? " said the smooth clean-shaven man to his
companion, an individual not of the most charming
appearance, who had chosen to make his ginger-
colored mustache merge into a pair of short chin-
whiskers.

The two stood at the hall door, grinning evilly at
each other ; and presently a girl ran quickly down
the stairs, and joined them. She was quite young,
with a quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful
face, and her eyes were of a shining hazel. She
held a neat paper parcel in one hand, and laughed
with her friends.

"Leave the door open," said the smooth man to

the other, as they were going out. "Yes, by ,"

he went on with an ugly oath. "We'll leave the
front door on the jar. He may like to see company,
you know."

The other man looked doubtfully about him. "Is
it quite prudent do you think, "Davies?" he said,
pausing with his hand on the mouldering knocker.
"I don't think Lipsius would like it. What do
you say, Helen?"

8 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"I agree with Davies. Davies is an artist, and
you are commonplace, Richmond, and a bit of a
coward. Let the door stand open, of course. But
what a pity Lipsius had to go away! He would
have enjoyed himself."

"Yes," replied the smooth Mr. Davies, "that
summons to the west was very hard on the doctor."

The three passed out, leaving the hall door,
cracked and riven with frost and wet, half open,
and they stood silent for a moment under the
ruinous shelter of the porch.

"Well," said the girl, "it is done at last. We
shall hurry no more on the track of the young man
with spectacles."

" We owe a great deal to you, " said Mr. Davies
politely; "the doctor said so before he left. But
have we not all three some farewells to make? I,
, for my part, propose to say good-by , here, before
this picturesque but mouldy residence, to my friend
Mr. Burton, dealer in the antique and curious, " and
the man lifted his hat with an exaggerated bow.

"And I," said Eichmond, "bid adieu to Mr.
Wilkins, the private secretary, whose company
has, I confess, become a little tedious."

"Farewell to Miss Lally, and to Miss Leicester
also," said the girl, making as she spoke a delicious
courtesy. "Farewell to all occult adventure; the
farce is played."

Mr. Davies and the lady seemed full of grim
enjoyment, but Richmond tugged at his whiskers
nervously.

"I feel a bit shaken up," he said. "I 've seen
rougher things in the States, but that crying noise

PROLOGUE. 9

he made gave me a sickish feeling. And then the
smell — But my stomach was never very strong."
The three friends moved away from the door, and
began to walk slowly up and down what had been
a gravel path, but now lay green and pulpy with
damp mosses. It was a fine autumn evening, and a
faint sunlight shone on the yellow walls of the old
deserted house, and showed the patches of gan-
grenous decay, and all the stains, the black drift
of rain from the broken pipes, the scabrous blots
where the bare bricks were exposed, the green
weeping of a gaunt laburnum that stood beside the
porch, and ragged marks near the ground where the
reeking clay was gaining on the worn foundations.
It was a queer rambling old place, the centre per-
haps two hundred years old, with dormer windows
sloping from the tiled roof, and on each side there
were Georgian wings ; bow windows had been car-
ried up to the first floor, and two dome-like cupolas
that had once been painted a bright green were now
gray and neutral. Broken urns lay upon the path,
and a heavy mist seemed to rise from the unctuous
clay; the neglected shrubberies, grown all tangled
and unshapen, smelt dank and evil, and there was
an atmosphere all about the deserted mansion that
proposed thoughts of an opened grave. The three
friends looked dismally at the rough grasses and
the nettles that grew thick over lawn and flower-
beds ; and at the sad water-pool in the midst of the
weeds. There, above green and oily scum instead
of lilies, stood a rusting Triton on the rocks, sound-
ing a dirge through a shattered horn; and beyond,
beyond the sunk fence and the far meadows, the

10 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

sun slid down and shone red through the bars of
the elm trees.

Richmond shivered and stamped his foot. " We
had better be going soon," he said; "there is noth-
ing else to be done here."

"No," said Davies, "it is finished at last. I
thought for some time we should never get hold
of the gentleman with the spectacles. He was a
clever fellow, but, Lord! he broke up badly at last.
I can tell you he looked white at me when I
touched him on the arm in the bar. But where
could he have hidden the thing? We can all swear
it was not on him."

The girl laughed, and they turned away, when
Richmond gave a violent start. " Ah ! " he cried,
turning to the girl, "what have you got there?
Look, Davies, look! it's all oozing and dripping."

The young woman glanced down at the little par-
cel she was carrying, and partially unfolded the
paper.

"Yes, look both of you," she said; "it's my own
'idea. Don't you think it will do nicely for the
^doctor's museum? It comes from the right hand,
the hand that took the gold Tiberius."

Mr. Davies nodded with a good deal of approba-
tion, and Richmond lifted his ugly high-crowned
bowler, and wiped his forehead with a dingy hand-
kerchief.

"I'm going," he said; "you two can stay if you
like."

The three went round by the stable path, past
the withered wilderness of the old kitchen garden,
and struck off by a hedge at the back, making for

PROLOGUE. 11

a particular point in the road. About five minutes
later two gentlemen, whom idleness had led to
explore these forgotten outskirts of London, came
sauntering up the shadowy carriage drive. They
had spied the deserted house from the road, and as'
they observed all the heavy desolation of the place
they began to moralize in the great style, with
considerable debts to Jeremy Taylor.

"Look, Dyson," said the one as they drew nearer,
" look at those upper windows ; the sun is setting,
and though the panes are dusty, yet

'* The grimy sash an oriel burns."

"Phillipps," replied the elder and (it must be
said) the more pompous of the two, "I yield to
fantasy, I cannot withstand the influence of the
grotesque. Here, where all is falling into dimness
and dissolution, and we walk in cedarn gloom, and
the very air of heaven goes mouldering to the
lungs, I cannot remain commonp]ace. I look at
that deep glow on the panes, and the house lies all
enchanted; that very room, I tell you, is within all
blood and fire."

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD
TIBERIUS.

THE acquaintance between Mr. Dyson and Mr.
Charles Phillipps arose from one of those myriad
chances which are every day doing their work in
the streets of London. Mr. Dyson was a man of
letters, and an unhappy instance of talents misap-
plied. With gifts that might have placed him in
the flower of his youth among the most favored of
Bentley's favorite novelists, he had chosen to be
perverse; he was, it is true, familiar with scholas-
tic logic, but he knew nothing of the logic of life,
and he flattered himself with the title of artist,
when he was in fact but an idle and curious spec-
tator of other men's endeavors. Amongst many
delusions, he cherished one most fondly, that he
was a strenuous worker; and it was with a gesture
of supreme weariness that he would enter his
favorite resort, a small tobacco shop in Great Queen
Street, and proclaim to any one who cared to listen
that he had seen the rising and setting of two suc-
cessive suns. The proprietor of the shop, a middle-
aged man of singular civility, tolerated Dyson
partly out of good nature, and partly because he
was a regular customer; he was allowed to sit on
an empty cask, and to express his sentiments on

.ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS. 13

literary and artistic matters till he was tired or the
time for closing came; and if no fresh customers
were attracted, it is believed that none were turned
away by his eloquence. Dyson was addicted to
wild experiments in tobacQo; he never wearied of
trying new combinations, and one evening he had
just entered the shop and given utterance to his
last preposterous formula, when a young fellow, of
about his own age, who had come in a moment
later, asked the shopman to duplicate the order on
his account, smiling politely, as he spoke, to Mr.
Dyson's address. Dyson felt profoundly flattered,
and after a few phrases the two entered into con-
versation, and in an hour's time the tobacconist saw
the new friends sitting side by side on a couple of
casks, deep in talk.

"My dear sir," said Dyson, "I will give you the
task of the literary man in a phrase. He has got
to do simply this : to invent a wonderful story, and
to tell it in a wonderful manner."

" I will grant you that, " said Mr. Phillipps , " but
you will allow me to insist that in the hands of the
true artist in words all stories are marvellous, and
every circumstance has its peculiar wonder. The
matter is of little consequence, the manner is every-
thing. Indeed, the highest skill is shown in taking
matter apparently commonplace and transmuting it
by the high alchemy of style into the pure gold of
art."

"That is indeed a proof of great skill, but it is
great skill exerted foolishly , or at least unadvisedly.
It is as if a great violinist were to show us what
marvellous harmonies he could draw from a child's
banjo. "

14 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"No, no, you are really wrong. I see you take
a radically mistaken view of life. But we must
thresh this out. Come to my rooms ; I live not far
from here."

It was thus that Mr. Dyson became the associate
of Mr. Charles Phillipps, who lived in a quiet square
not far from Holborn. Thenceforth they haunted
each other's rooms at intervals, sometimes regular,
and occasionally the reverse, and made appoint-
ments to meet at the shop in Queen Street, where
their talk robbed the tobacconist's profit of half its
charm. There was a constant jarring of literary
formulas, Dyson exalting the claims of the pure
imagination, while Phillipps, who was a student of
physical science and something of an ethnologist,
insisted that all literature ought to have a scientific
basis. By the mistaken benevolence of deceased
relatives both young men were placed out of reach
of hunger, and so, meditating high achievements,
idled their time pleasantly away, and revelled in
the careless joys of a Bohemianism devoid of the
sharp seasoning of adversity.

One night in June Mr. Phillipps was sitting in
his room in the calm retirement of Red Lion Square.
He had opened the window, and was smoking
placidly, while he watched the movement of life
below. The sky was clear, and the afterglow of
sunset had lingered long about it; and the flushing
twilight of a summer evening, vying with the gas-
lamps in the square, had fashioned a chiaroscuro
that had in it something unearthly; and the chil-
dren, racing to and fro upon the pavement, the loun-
ging idlers by the public, and the casual passers-by

I

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS. 15

rather flickered and hovered in the play of lights
than stood out substantial things. By degrees in
the houses opposite one window after another leaped
out a square of light, now and again a figure would
shape itself against a blind and vanish, and to all
this semi-theatrical magic the runs and flourishes
of brave Italian opera played a little distance off
on a piano-organ seemed an appropriate accompani-
ment, while the deep-muttered bass of the traffic of
Holborn never ceased. Phillipps enjoyed the scene
and its effects ; the light in the sky faded and turned
to darkness, and the square gradually grew silent,
and still he sat dreaming at the window, till the
sharp peal of the house bell roused him, and looking
at his watch he found that it was past ten o'clock.
There was a knock at the door, and his friend Mr.
Dyson entered, and, according to his custom, sat
down in an armchair and began to smoke in
silence.

"You know, Phillipps," he said at length, "that I
have always battled for the marvellous. I remem-
ber your maintaining in that chair that one has no
business to make use of the wonderful, the improb-
able, the odd coincidence in literature, and you
took the ground that it was wrong to do so, because,
as a matter of fact, the wonderful and the improb-
able don't happen, and men's lives are not really
shaped by odd coincidence. Now, mind you, if
that were so, I would not grant your conclusion,
because I think the " criticism-of-life " theory is all
nonsense; but I deny your premise. A most sin-
gular thing has happened to me to-night."

"Really, Dyson, I am very glad to hear it. Of

16 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

course* I oppose your argument, whatever it may
be; but if you would be good enough to tell me
of your adventure I should be delighted."

"Well, it came about like this. I have had a
very hard day's work; indeed, I have scarcely moved
from my old bureau since seven o'clock last night.
I wanted to work out that idea we discussed last
Tuesday, you know, the notion of the fetish-
worshipper."

"Yes, I remember. Have you been able to do
anything with it?"

"Yes; it came out better than I expected; but
there were great difficulties, the usual agony be-
tween the conception and the execution. Anyhow
I got it done at about seven o'clock to-night, and I
thought I should like a little of the fresh air. I went
out and wandered rather aimlessly about the streets ;
my head was full of my tale, and I didn't much
notice where I was going. I got into those quiet
places to the north of Oxford Street as you go west,
the genteel residential neighborhood of stucco and
prosperity. I turned east again without knowing
it, and it was quite dark when I passed along a
sombre little by-street, ill lighted and empty. I
did not know at the time in the least where I was,
but I found out afterwards that it was not very far
from Tottenham Court Road. I strolled idly along,
enjoying the stillness ; on one side there seemed to
be the back premises of some great shop; tier after
tier of dusty windows lifted up into the night, with
gibbet-like contrivances for raising heavy goods,
and below large doors, fast closed and bolted, all
dark and desolate. Then there came a huge pan-

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS. 17

technicon warehouse; and over the way a grim
blank wall, as forbidding as the wall of a jail, and
then the headquarters of some volunteer regiment,
and afterwards a passage leading to a court where
wagons were standing to be hired. It was, one
might almost say, a street devoid of inhabitants,
and scarce a window showed the glimmer of a light.
I was wondering at the strange peace and dimness
there, where it must be close to some roaring main
artery of London life, when suddenly I heard the
noise of dashing feet tearing along the pavement at
full speed, and from a narrow passage, a mews or
something of that kind, a man was discharged as
from a catapult under my very nose and rushed
past me, flinging something from him as he ran.
He was gone and down another street in an instant,
almost before I knew what had happened, but I
did n't much bother about him, I was watching
something else. I told you he had thrown some-
thing away; well, I watched what seemed a line of
flame flash through the air and fly quivering over
the pavement, and in spite of myself I could not
help tearing after it. The impetus lessened, and
I saw something like a bright half -penny roll slower
and slower, and then deflect towards the gutter,
hover for a moment on the edge, and dance down
into a drain. I believe I cried out in positive
despair, though I hadn't the least notion what I
was hunting ; and then to my joy I saw that, instead
of dropping into the sewer, it had fallen flat across
two bars. I stooped down and picked it up and
whipped it into my pocket, and I was just about to
walk on when I heard again that sound of dashing

18 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

footsteps. I don't know why I did it, but as a matter
of fact I dived down into the mews, or whatever it
was, and stood as much in the shadow as possible.
A man went by with a rush a few paces from where
I was standing, and I felt uncommonly pleased that
I was in hiding. I could n't make out much fea-
ture, but I saw his eyes gleaming, and his teeth
showing, and he had an ugly-looking knife in one
hand, and I thought things would be very un-
pleasant for gentleman number one if the second
robber, or robbed, or what 3rou like, caught him
up. I can tell you, Phillipps, a fox hunt is excit-
ing enough, when the horn blows clear on a winter
morning, and the hounds give tongue, and the red-
coats charge away, but it 's nothing to a man hunt,
and that 's what I had a slight glimpse of to-night.
There was murder in the fellow's eyes as he went
by, and I don't think there was much more than
fifty seconds between the two. I only hope it was
enough."

Dyson leant back in his armchair and relit his
pipe, and puffed thoughtfully. Phillipps began to
walk up and down the room, musing over the story
of violent death fleeting in chase along the pave-
ment, the knife shining in the lamplight, the fury
of the pursuer, and the terror of the pursued.

"Well," he said at last, uand what was it, after
all, that you rescued from the gutter? "

Dyson jumped up, evidently quite startled. "I
really have n't a notion. I didn't think of looking.
But we shall see."

He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and drew out
a small and shining object, and laid it on the table.

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS. 19

It glowed there beneath the lamp with the radiant
glory of rare old gold; and the image and the let-
ters stood out in high relief, clear and sharp, as if
it had but left the mint a month before. The two
men bent over it, and Phillipps took it up and
examined it closely.

"Imp. Tiberius Caesar Augustus," he read the
legend, and then, looking at the reverse of the
coin, he stared in amazement, and at last turned to
Dyson with a look of exultation.

"Do you know what you have found?" he said.

"Apparently a gold coin of some antiquity," said
Dyson, coolly.

"Quite so, a gold Tiberius. No, that is wrong.
You have found the gold Tiberius. Look at the
reverse."

Dyson looked and saw the coin was stamped with
the figure of a faun standing amidst reeds and flow-
ing water. The features, minute as they were,
stood out in delicate outline; it was a face lovely
and yet terrible, and Dyson thought of the well-
known passage of the lad's playmate, gradually
growing with his growth and increasing with his
stature, till the air was filled with the rank fume
of the goat.

"Yes," he said, "it is a curious coin. Do you
know it?"

" I know about it. It is one of the comparatively
few historical objects in existence; it is all storied
like those jewels we have read of. A whole cycle
of legend has gathered round the thing; the tale
goes that it formed part of an issue struck by
Tiberius to commemorate an infamous excess. You

20 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

see the legend on the reverse : f Victoria. ' Tt is said
that by an extraordinary accident the whole issue
was thrown into the melting pot, and that only this
one coin escaped. It glints through history and
legend, appearing and disappearing, with intervals
of a hundred years in time and continents in place.
It was ' discovered ' by an Italian humanist, and
lost and rediscovered. It has not been heard of
since 1727, when Sir Joshua Byrde, a Turkey mer-
chant, brought it home from Aleppo, and vanished
with it a month after he had shown it to the
virtuosi, no man knew or knows where. And here
it is!"

"Put it into your pocket, Dyson," he said, after a
pause. " I would not let any one have a glimpse of
the thing, if I were you. I would not talk about
it. Did either of the men you saw see you?"

"Well, I think not. I don't think the first man,
the man who was vomited out of the dark passage,
saw anything at all ; and I am sure that the second
could not have seen me."

"And you did n't really see them. You could n't
recognize either the one or the other if you met him
in the street to-morrow?"

"No, I don't think I could. The street, as I
said, was dimly lighted, and they ran like mad-
men."

The two men sat silent for some time, each weav-
ing his own fancies of the story; but lust of the
marvellous was slowly overpowering Dyson's more
sober thoughts.

"It is all more strange than I fancied," he said
at last. "It was queer enough what I saw; a man

ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS. 21

is sauntering along a quiet, sober, every-day London
street, a street of gray houses and blank walls, and
there, for a moment, a veil seems drawn aside, and
the very fume of the pit steams up through the
flagstones, the ground glows, red-hot, beneath his
feet, and he seems to hear the hiss of the infer-
nal caldron. A man flying in mad terror for his
life, and furious hate pressing hot on his steps with
knife drawn ready; here indeed is horror. But
what is all that to what you have told me? I tell
you, Phillipps, I see the plot thicken; our steps
will henceforth be dogged with mystery, and the
most ordinary incidents will teem with significance.
You may stand out against it , and shut your eyes , but
they will be forced open; mark my words, you will
have to yield to the inevitable. A clue, tangled if
you like, has been placed by chance in our hands ;
it will be our business to follow it up. As for the
guilty person or persons in this strange case , they
will be unable to escape us, our nets will be spread
far and wide over this great city, and suddenly, in
the streets and places of public resort, we shall
in some way or other be made aware that we are
in touch with the unknown criminal. Indeed, I
almost fancy I see him slowly approaching this
quiet square of yours; he is loitering at street
corners, wandering, apparently without aim, down
far-reaching thoroughfares, but all the while com-
ing nearer and nearer, drawn by an irresistible
magnetism, as ships were drawn to the Loadstone
Rock in the Eastern tale."

"I certainly think," replied Phillipps, "that, if
you pull out that coin and flourish it under people's

22 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

noses as you are doing at the present moment, you
will very probably find yourself in touch with the
criminal, or a criminal. You will undoubtedly be
robbed with violence. Otherwise, I see no reason
why either of us should be troubled. No one saw
you secure the coin, and no one knows you have it.
I, for my part, shall sleep peacefully, and go about
my business with a sense of security and a firm
dependence on the natural order of things. The
events of the evening, the adventure in the street,
have been odd, I grant you, but I resolutely decline
to have any more to do with the matter, and, if
necessary, I shall consult the police. I will not be
enslaved by a gold Tiberius, even though it swims
into my ken in a manner which is somewhat melo-
dramatic."

" And I for my part, " said Dyson, " go forth like
a knight-errant in search of adventure. Not that
I shall need to seek; rather adventure will seek me;
I shall be like a spider in the midst of his web,
responsive to every movement, and ever on the
alert."

Shortly afterwards Dyson took his leave, and Mr.
Phillipps spent the rest of the night in examining
some flint arrow-heads which he had purchased. He
had every reason to believe that they were the work
of a modern and not a palaeolithic man, still he was
far from gratified when a close scrutiny showed
him that his suspicions were well founded. In his
anger at the turpitude which would impose on an
ethnologist, he completely forgot Dyson and the
gold Tiberius; and when he went to bed at first
sunlight, the whole tale had faded utterly from his
thoughts.

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE
PAVEMENT.

MB. Drsoisr, walking leisurely along Oxford Street,
and staring with bland inquiry at whatever caught
his attention, enjoyed in all its rare flavors the sen-
sation that he was really very hard at work. His
observation of mankind, the traffic, and the shop-
windows tickled his faculties with an exquisite
bouquet; he looked serious, as one looks on whom
charges of weight and moment are laid, and he was
attentive in his glances to right and left, for fear
lest he should miss some circumstance of more
acute significance. He had narrowly escaped being
run over at a crossing by a charging van, for he
hated to hurry his steps, and indeed the afternoon
was warm ; and he had just halted by a place of
popular refreshment, when the astounding gestures
of a well dressed individual on the opposite pave-
ment held him enchanted and gasping like a fish.
A treble line of hansoms, carriages, vans, cabs,
and omnibuses, was tearing east and west, and not
the most daring adventurer of the crossings would
have cared to try his fortune; but the person who'
had attracted Dyson's attention seemed to rage on
the very edge of the pavement, now and then dart-
ing forward at the hazard of instant death, and at
each repulse absolutely dancing with excitement,

24 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

to the rich amusement of the passers-by. At last,
a gap that would have tried the courage of a street-
boy appeared between the serried lines of vehicles,
and the man rushed across in a frenzy, and escaping
by a hair's breadth pounced upon Dyson as a tiger
pounces on her prey. "I saw you looking about
you," he said, sputtering out his words in his in-
tense eagerness; "would you mind telling me this?
Was the man who came out of the Aerated Bread
Shop and jumped into the hansom three minutes ago
a youngish looking man with dark whiskers and
spectacles? Can't you speak, man? For Heaven's
sake can't you speak? Answer me; it's a matter
of life and death."

The words bubbled and boiled out of the man's
mouth in the fury of his emotion, his face went
from red to white, and the beads of sweat stood out
on his forehead, and he stamped his feet as he
spoke and tore with his hand at his coat, as if
something swelled and choked him, stopping the
passage of his breath.

" My dear sir, " said Dyson , " I always like to be
accurate. Your observation was perfectly correct.
. As you say, a youngish man, a man, I should say ,
of somewhat timid bearing, ran rapidly out of the
shop here, and bounced into a hansom that must
have been waiting for him, as it went eastwards at
once. Your friend also wore spectacles , as you say.
Perhaps you would like me to call a hansom for
you to follow the gentleman?"

"No, thank you; it would be waste of time."
The man gulped down something which appeared
to rise in his throat, and Dyson was alarmed to see

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 25

him shaking with hysterical laughter, and he clung
hard to a lamp-post and swayed and staggered like
a ship in a heavy gale.

"How shall I face the doctor?" he murmured
to himself. "It is too hard to fail at the last
moment." Then he seemed to recollect himself,
and stood straight again, and looked quietly at
Dyson. "I owe you an apology for my violence,"
he said at last. "Many men would not be so
patient as you have been. Would you mind add-
ing to your kindness by walking with me a little
way? 1 feel a little sick; I think it 's the sun."

Dyson nodded assent, and devoted himself to a
quiet scrutiny of this strange personage as they
moved on together. The man was dressed in quiet
taste, and the most scrupulous observer could find
nothing amiss with the fashion or make of his
clothes, yet, from his hat to his boots, everything
seemed inappropriate. His silk hat, Dyson thought,
should have been a high bowler of odious pattern
worn with a baggy morning-coat, and an instinct
told him that the fellow did not commonly carry
a clean pocket-handkerchief. Tfye face was not of
the most agreeable pattern, and was in no way im-
proved by a pair of bulbous chin-whiskers of a
ginger hue, into which mustaches of light color
merged imperceptibly. Yet in spite of these sig-
nals hung out by nature, Dyson felt that the
individual beside him was something more than
compact of vulgarity. He was struggling with
himself, holding his feelings in check, but now
and again passion would mount black to his face,
and it was evidently by a supreme effort that he

26 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

kept himself from raging like a madman. Dyson
found something curious and a little terrible in the
spectacle of an occult emotion thus striving for
the mastery, and threatening to break out at every
instant with violence; and they had gone some dis-
tance before the person whom he had met by so odd
a hazard was able to speak quietly.

"You are really very good," he said. "I apolo-
gize again; my rudeness was really most unjustifi-
able. I feel my conduct demands an explanation,
and I shall be happy to give it you. Do you happen
to know of any place near here where one could sit
down? I should really be very glad."

"My dear sir," said Dyson, solemnly, "the only
cafe in London is close by. Pray do not consider
yourself as bound to offer me any explanation, but
at the same time I should be most happy to listen
to you. Let us turn down here."

They walked down a sober street and turned into
what seemed a narrow passage past an iron-barred
gate thrown back. The passage was paved with
flagstones, and decorated with handsome shrubs in
pots on either side, and the shadow of the high
walls made a coolness which was very agreeable
after the hot breath of the sunny street. Pres-
ently the passage opened out into a tiny square, a
charming place, a morsel of France transplanted
into the heart of London. High walls rose on
either side, covered with glossy creepers, flower-
beds beneath were gay with nasturtiums, geraniums,
and marigolds, and odorous with mignonette, and
in the centre of the square a fountain hidden by
greenery sent a cool shower continually plashing

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 27

into the basin beneath, and the very noise made
this retreat delightful. Chairs and tables were
disposed at convenient intervals, and at the other
end of the court broad doors had been thrown back ;
beyond was a long, dark room, and the turmoil
of traffic had become a distant murmur. Within
the room one or two men were sitting at the tables,
writing and sipping, but the courtyard was empty.

" You see, we shall be quiet, " said Dyson. " Pray
sit down here, Mr. ? "

"Wilkins. My name is Henry Wilkins."

"Sit here, Mr. Wilkins. I think you will find
that a comfortable seat. I suppose you have not
been here before? This is the quiet time; the place
will be like a hive at six o'clock, and the chairs
and tables will overflow into that little alley there."

A waiter came in response to the bell; and after
Dyson had politely inquired after the health of M.
Annibault, the proprietor, he ordered a bottle of
the wine of Champigny.

"The wine of Champigny," he observed to Mr.
Wilkins, who was evidently a good deal composed
by the influence of the place, "is a Tourainian wine
of great merit. Ah, here it is; let me fill your
glass. How do you find it?"

"Indeed," said Mr. Wilkins, "I should have pro-
nounced it a fine Burgundy. The bouquet is very
exquisite. I am fortunate in lighting upon such
a good Samaritan as yourself. I wonder you did
not think me mad. But if you knew the terrors
that assailed me, I am sure you would no longer
be surprised at conduct which was certainly most
unjustifiable."

28 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

He sipped his wine, and leant back in his chair,
relishing the drip and trickle of the fountain, and
the cool greenness that hedged in this little port of
refuge.

"Yes," he said at last, "that is indeed an
admirable wine. Thank you; you will allow me to
offer you another bottle?"

The waiter was summoned, and descended through
a trap-door in the floor of the dark apartment, and
brought up the wine. Mr. Wilkins lit a cigarette,
and Dyson pulled out his pipe.

"Now," said Mr. Wilkins, "I promised to give
you an explanation of my strange behavior. It is
rather a long story, but I see, sir, that you are no
mere cold observer of the ebb and flow of life. You
take, I think, a warm and an intelligent interest in
the chances of your fellow-creatures, and I believe
you will find what I have to tell not devoid of
interest."

Mr. Dyson signified his assent to these proposi-
tions, and though he thought Mr. Wilkins's diction
a little pompous, prepared to interest himself in
his tale. The other, who had so raged with pas-
sion half an hour before, was now perfectly cool,
and when he had smoked out his cigarette, he began
in an even voice to relate the

NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY.

I am the son of a poor but learned clergyman iu
the West of England, — but I am forgetting, these
details are not of special interest. I will briefly

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 29

state, then, that my father, who was, as I have
said, a learned man, had never learnt the specious
arts by which the great are flattered, and would
never condescend to the despicable pursuit of self-
advertisement. Though his fondness for ancient
ceremonies and quaint customs, combined with a
kindness of heart that was unequalled and a primi-
tive and fervent piety, endeared him to his moor-
land parishioners, such were not the steps by which
clergy then rose in the Church, and at sixty my
'father was still incumbent of the little benefice he
had accepted in his thirtieth year. The income of
the living was barely sufficient to support life in
the decencies which are expected of the Anglican
parson ; and when my father died a few years ago, I,
his only child, found myself thrown upon the world
with a slender capital of less than a hundred pounds,
and all the problem of existence before me. I felt
that there was nothing for me to do in the country,
and as usually happens in such cases, London drew
me like a magnet. One day in August, in the early
morning, while the dew still glittered on the turf,
and on the high green banks of the lane, a neighbor
drove me to the railway station, and I bade good-bye
to the land of the broad moors and unearthly battle-
ments of the wild tors. It was six o'clock as we
neared London; the faint sickly fume of the brick-
fields about Acton came in puffs through the open
window, and a mist was rising from the ground.
Presently the brief view of successive streets, prim
and uniform, struck me with a sense of monotony;
the hot air seemed to grow hotter; and when we
had rolled beneath the dismal and squalid houses,

30 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

whose dirty and neglected back yards border the
line near Paddington, I felt as if I should be stifled
in this fainting breath of London. I got a han-
som and drove off, and every street increased my
gloom ; gray houses with blinds drawn down, whole
thoroughfares almost desolate, and the foot-pas-
sengers who seemed to stagger wearily along rather
than walk, all made me feel a sinking at heart. I
put up for the night at a small hotel in a street
leading from the Strand, where my father had stayed
on his few brief visits to town; and when I went
out after dinner, the real gayety and bustle of the
Strand and Fleet Street could cheer me but little,
for in all this great city there was no single human
being whom I could claim even as an acquaint-
ance. I will not weary you with the history of the
next year, for the adventures of a man who sinks
are too trite to be worth recalling. My money did
not last me long; I found that I must be neatly
dressed, or no one to whom I applied would so
much as listen to me; and I must live in a street
of decent reputation if I wished to be treated with
common civility. I applied for various posts, for
which, as I now see, I was completely devoid of
qualification; I tried to become a clerk without
having the smallest notion of business habits,
and I found, to my cost, that a general knowledge
of literature and an execrable style of penmanship
are far from being looked upon with favor in com-
mercial circles. I had read one of the most charm-
ing of the works of a famous novelist of the present
day, and I frequented the Fleet Street taverns in
the hope of making literary friends, and so getting

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 31

the introductions which I understood were indispen-
sable in the career of letters. I was disappointed;
I once or twice ventured to address gentlemen who
were sitting in adjoining boxes, and I was answered,
politely indeed, but in a manner that told me my
advances were unusual. Pound by pound, my
small resources melted; I could no longer think of
appearances; I migrated to a shy quarter, and my
meals became mere observances. I went out at
one and returned to my room at two, but nothing
but a milk-cake had occurred in the interval. In
short, I became acquainted with misfortune; and as
I sat amidst slush and ice on a seat in Plyde Park,
munching a piece of bread, I realized the bitterness
of poverty , and the feelings of a gentleman reduced
to something far below the condition of a vagrant.
In spite of all discouragement I did not desist in
my efforts to earn a living. I consulted advertise-
ment columns, I kept my eyes open for a chance, I
looked in at the windows of stationers' shops, but
all in vain. One evening I was sitting in a Free
Library, and I saw an advertisement in one of the
papers. It was something like this: "Wanted by
a gentleman a person of literary taste and abilities
as secretary and amanuensis. Must not object to
travel." Of course I knew that such an advertise-
ment would have answers by the hundred, and I
thought my own chances of securing the post ex-
tremely small; however, I applied at the address
given, and wrote to Mr. Smith, who was staying
at a large hotel at the West End. I must confess
that my heart gave a jump when I received a note
a couple of days later, asking me to call at the

32 THE THKEE IMPOSTORS.

Cosmopole at my earliest convenience. I do not
know, sir, what your experiences of life may have
been, and so I cannot tell whether you have known
such moments. A slight sickness, my heart beat-
ing rather more rapidly than usual, a choking in
the throat, and a difficulty of utterance ; such were
my sensations as I walked to the Cosmopole. I
had . to mention the name twice before the hall por-
ter could understand me, and as I went upstairs my
hands were wet. I was a good deal struck by Mr.
Smith's appearance; he looked younger than I did,
and there was something mild and hesitating about
his expression. He was reading when I came in,
and he looked up when I gave my name. " My
dear sir," he said, "I am really delighted to see you.
I have read very carefully the letter you were good
enough to send me. Am I to understand that this
document is in your own handwriting?" He showed
me the letter I had written, and I told him I was
not so fortunate as to be able to keep a secretary
myself. " Then, sir," he went on, " the post I adver-
tised is at your service. You have no objection to
travel, I presume?" As you may imagine, I closed
pretty eagerly with the offer he made, and thus I
entered the service of Mr. Smith. For the first
few weeks I had no special duties ; I had received
a quarter's salary, and a handsome allowance was
made me in lieu of board and lodging. One morn-
ing, however, when I called at the hotel according
to instructions, my master informed me that I must
hold myself in readiness for a sea-voyage, and, to
spare unnecessary detail, in the course of a fort-
night we had landed at New York. Mr. Smith

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 33

told me that he was engaged on a work of a special
nature, in the compilation of which some peculiar
researches had to be made; in short, I was given to
understand that we were to travel to the far West.

After about a week had been spent in New York
we took our seats in the cars, and began a journey
tedious beyond all conception. Day after day, and
night after night, the great train rolled on, thread-
ing its way through cities the very names of which
were strange to me, passing at slow speed over
perilous viaducts, skirting mountain ranges and
pine forests, and plunging into dense tracts of
wood, where mile after mile and hour after hour
the same monotonous growth of brushwood met the
eye, and all along the continual clatter and rattle
of the wheels upon the ill-laid lines made it diffi-
cult to hear the voices of our fellow-passengers.
We were a heterogeneous and ever-changing com-
pany; often I woke up in the dead of night with
the sudden grinding jar of the brakes, and looking
out found that we had stopped in the shabby street
of some frame-built town, lighted chiefly by the
flaring windows of the saloon. A few rough -look-
ing'fellows would often come out to stare at the
cars, and sometimes passengers got down, and some-
times there was a party of two or three waiting on
the wooden sidewalk to get' on board. Many of
the passengers were English; humble households
torn up from the moorings of a thousand years, and
bound for some problematical paradise in the alkali
desert or the Rockies. I heard the men talking to
one another of the great profits to be made on the
virgin soil of America, and two or three, who were

3

34 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

mechanics, expatiated on the wonderful wages given
to skilled labor on the railways and in the factories
of the States. This talk usually fell dead after a
few minutes, and I could see a sickness and dismay
in the faces of these men as they looked at the
ugly brush or at the desolate expanse of the prairie,
dotted here and there with frame-houses, devoid of
garden, or flowers or trees, standing all alone in
what might have been a great gray sea frozen into
stillness. Day after day the waving sky line, and
the desolation of a land without form or color or
variety, appalled the hearts of such of us as were
Englishmen, and once in the night as I lay awake
I heard a woman weeping and sobbing, and asking
what she had done to come to such a place. Her
husband tried to comfort her in the broad speech of
Gloucestershire, telling her the ground was so rich
that one had only to plough it up and it would grow
sunflowers of itself, but she cried for her mother
and their old cottage and the beehives, like a little
child. The sadness of it all overwhelmed me, and
I had no heart to think of other matters ; the ques-
tion of what Mr. Smith could have to do in such 'a
country, and of what manner of literary research
could be carried on in the wilderness, hardly troubled
me. Now and again my situation struck me as
peculiar; I had been engaged as a literary assistant
at a handsome salary, and yet my master was still
almost a stranger to me; sometimes he would come
to where I was sitting in the cars and make a few
banal remarks about the country, but for the most
part of the journey he sat by himself, not speaking
to any one, and so far as I could judge, deep in his

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 35

thoughts. It was I think on the fifth day from
New York when I received the intimation that we
should shortly leave the cars; I had been watching
some distant mountains which rose wild and savage
before us, and I was wondering if there were human
beings so unhappy as to speak of home in connec-
tion with those piles of lumbered rock, when Mr.
Smith touched me lightly on the shoulder. " You
will be glad to be done with the cars, I have no
doubt, Mr. Wilkins," he said. "You were looking
at the mountains, I think? Well, I hope we shall
be there to-night. The train stops at Reading, and
I dare say we shall manage to find our way.7'

A few hours later the brakeman brought the
train to a standstill at the Heading depot and we
got out. I noticed that the town, though of course
built almost entirely of frame-houses, was larger
and busier than any we had passed for the last two
days. The depot was crowded, and as the bell and
whistle sounded, I saw that a number of persons
were preparing to leave the cars, while an even
greater number were waiting to get on board.
Besides the passengers, there was a pretty dense
crowd of people, some of whom had come to meet
or to see off their friends and relatives, while others
were mere loafers. Several of our English fellow
passengers got down at Eeading, but the confusion
was so great that they were lost to my sight almost
immediately. Mr. Smith beckoned to me to follow
him, and we were soon in the thick of the mass ;
and the continual ringing of bells, the hubbub of
voices, the shrieking of whistles, and the hiss of
escaping steam, confused my senses, and I wondered

36 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

dimly as I. struggled after my employer, where we
were going, and how we should be able to find our
way through an unknown country. Mr. Smith had
put on a wide-brimmed hat, which he had sloped
over his eyes, and as all the men wore hats of the
same pattern, it was with some difficulty that I
distinguished him in the crowd. We got free at
last, and he struck down a side street, and made
one or two sharp turns to right and left. It was
getting dusk, and we seemed to be passing through
a shy portion of the town, there were few people
about in the ill-lighted streets, and these few were
men of the most unprepossessing pattern. Sud-
denly we stopped before a corner house, a man was
standing at the door, apparently on the look-out for
some one, and I noticed that he and Smith gave
sharp glances one to the other.

"From New York City, I expect, mister?"

4 'From New York!"

"All right; they 're ready, and you can have 'em
when you choose. I know my orders, you see, and
I mean to run this business through."

" Very well, Mr. Evans, that is what we want.
Our money is good, you know. Bring them round."

I had stood silent, listening to this dialogue, and
wondering what it meant. Smith began to walk
impatiently up and down the street, and the man
Evans was still standing at his door. He had given
a sharp whistle, and I saw him looking me over in
a quiet leisurely way, as if to make sure of my face
for another time. I was thinking what all this
could mean, when an ugly, slouching lad came up a
.side passage, leading two raw-boned horses.

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 37

"Get up, Mr. Wilkins, and be quick about it,"
said Smith. "We ought to be on our way."

We rode off together info the gathering darkness,
and before long I looked back and saw the far plain
behind us, with the lights of the town glimmering
faintly; and in front rose the mountains. Smith
guided his horse on the rough track as surely as if
he had been riding along Piccadilly, and I followed
him as well as I could. I was weary and exhausted,
and scarcely took note of anything; I felt that the
track was a gradual ascent, and here and there I
saw great boulders by the road. The ride made but
little impression on me ; I have a faint recollection
of passing through a dense black pine forest, where
our horses had to pick their way among the rocks,
and I remember the peculiar effect of the rarefied
air as we kept still mounting higher and higher. I
think I must have been half asleep for the latter
half of the ride, and it was with a shock that I heard
Smith saying —

" Here we are, Wilkins. This is Blue-Rock Park.
You will enjoy the view to-morrow. To-night we
will have something to eat, and then go to bed."

A man came out of a rough -looking house and
took the horses, and we found some fried steak and
coarse whiskey awaiting us inside. I had come to
a strange place. There were three rooms, — the room
in which we had supper, Smith's room and my own.
The deaf old man who did the work slept in a sort
of shed, and when I woke up the next morning and
walked out I found that the house stood in a sort
of hollow amongst the mountains; the clumps of
pines and some enormous bluish-gray rocks that

38 THE THKEE IMPOSTORS.

stood here and there between the trees had given
the place the name of Blue-Kock Park. On every
side the snow-covered mountains surrounded us, the
breath of the air was as wine, and when I climbed
the slope and looked down, I could see that, so far
as any human fellowship was concerned I might as
well have been wrecked on some small island in
mid-Pacific. The only trace of man I could see
was the rough log-house where I had slept, and in
my ignorance I did not know that there were sim-
ilar houses within comparatively easy distance, as
distance is reckoned in the Kockies. But at the
moment, the utter, dreadful loneliness rushed upon
me, and the thought of the great plain and the
great sea that parted me from the world I knew,
caught me by the throat, and I wondered if I should
die there in that mountain hollow. It was a ter-
rible instant, and I have not yet forgotten it. Of
course I managed to conquer my horror; I said I
should be all the stronger for the experience, and I
made up my mind to make the best of everything.
It was a rough life enough, and rough enough board
and lodging. I was left entirely to myself. Smith I
scarcely ever saw, nor did I know when he was in
the house. I have often thought he was far away,
and have been surprised to see him walking out of
his room, locking the door behind him and putting
the key in his pocket; and on several occasions
when I fancied he was busy in his room, I have
seen him come in with his boots covered with dust
and dirt. So far as work went I enjoyed a com-
plete sinecure; I had nothing to do but to walk
about the valley, to eat, and to sleep. With one

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 39

thing and another I grew accustomed to the life,
and managed to make myself pretty comfortable,
and by degrees I began to venture farther away
from the house, and to explore the country. One
day I had contrived to get into a neighboring valley,
and suddenly I came upon a group of men sawing
timber. I went up to them, hoping that perhaps
some of them might be Englishmen; at all events
they were human beings, and I should hear artic-
ulate speech, for the old man I have mentioned,
besides being half blind and stone deaf, was wholly
dumb so far as 1 was concerned. I was prepared
to be welcomed in a rough and ready fashion,
without much of the forms of politeness, but the
grim glances and the short gruff answers I received
astonished me. I saw the men glancing oddly at
each other, and one of them who had stopped work
began fingering a gun, and I was obliged to return
on my path uttering curses on the fate which had
brought me into a land where men were more
brutish than the very brutes. The solitude of the
life began to oppress me as with a nightmare, and
a few days later I determined to walk to a kind of
station some miles distant, where a rough inn was
kept for the accommodation of hunters and tourists.
English gentlemen occasionally stopped there for the
night, and I thought I might perhaps fall in with
some one of better manners than the inhabitants of
the country. I found as I had expected a group of
men lounging about the door of the log-house that
served as a hotel, and as I came nearer I could
see that heads were put together and looks inter-
changed, and when I walked up the six or seven

40 THE THREE IMPOSTOKS.

trappers stared at me in stony ferocity, and with
something of the disgust that one eyes a loathsome
and venomous snake. I felt that I could bear it no
longer, and I called out : —

"Is there such a thing as an Englishman here, or
any one with a little civilization? "

One of the men put his hand to his belt, but his
neighbor checked him and answered me.

44 You '11 find we 've got some of the resources of
civilization before very long, mister, and I expect
you ;11 not fancy them extremely. But anyway,
there }s an Englishman tarrying here, and I 've no
doubt he '11 be glad to see you. There you are,
that 's Mr. D'Aubernoun."

A young man, dressed like an English country
squire, came and stood at the door, and looked at
me. One of the men pointed to me and said: —

" That 's the individual we were talking about
last night. Thought you might like to have a look
at him, squire, and here he is."

The young fellow's good-natured English face
clouded over, and he glanced sternly at me, and
turned away with a gesture of contempt and
aversion.

"Sir," I cried, "I do not know what I have done
to be treated in this manner. You are my fellow-
countryman, arid I expected some courtesy."

He gave me a black look and made as if he would
go in, but he changed his mind, and faced me.

" You are rather imprudent, I think, to behave in
this manner. You must be counting on a forbear-
ance which cannot last very long; which may last a
very short time, indeed. And let me tell you this,

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 41

sir, you may call yourself an Englishman and drag
the name of England through the dirt, but you need
not count on any English influence to help you. If
I were you, I would not stay here much longer."

He went into the inn, and the men quietly
watched my face, as I stood there, wondering
whether I was going mad. The woman of the
house came out and stared at me as if I were a
wild beast or a savage, and I turned to her, and
spoke quietly.

" I am very hungry and thirsty, I have walked a
long way. I have plenty of money. Will you give
me something to eat and drink?"

"No, I won't," she said. "You had better quit
this."

I crawled home like a wounded beast, and lay
down on my bed. It was all a hopeless puzzle to
me. I knew nothing but rage and shame and ter-
ror, and I suffered little more when I passed by a
house in an adjacent valley, and some children who
were playing outside ran from me shrieking. I
was forced to walk to find some occupation. I
should have died if I had sat down quietly in Blue
Rock Park and looked all day at the mountains;
but wherever I saw a human being I saw the same
glance of hatred and aversion, and once as I was
crossing a thick brake I heard a shot, and the
venomous hiss of a bullet close to my ear.

One day I heard a conversation which astounded
me; I was sitting behind a rock resting, and two
men came along the track and halted. One of them
had got his feet entangled in some wild vines, and
swore fiercely, but the other laughed, and said they
were useful things sometimes.

42 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

" What the hell do you mean? "

"Oh, nothing much. But they're uncommon
tough, these here vines, and sometimes rope is
skerse and dear."

The man who had sworn chuckled at this, and I
heard them sit down and light their pipes.

"Have you seen him lately?" asked the humorist.

"I sighted him the other day, but the darned
bullet went high. He 's got his master's luck, I
expect, sir, but it can't last much longer. You
heard about him going to Jinks's and trying his
brass, but the young Britisher downed him pretty
considerable, I can tell you."

" What the devil is the meaning of it? "

"I don't know, but I believe it'll have to be
finished, and done in the old style, too. You know
how they fix the niggers? "

"Yes, sir, I've seen a little of that. A couple
of gallons of kerosene '11 cost a dollar at Brown's
store, but I should say it 's cheap anyway."

They moved off after this, and I lay still behind
the rock, the sweat pouring down my face. I was
so sick that I could barely stand, and I walked
home as slowly as an old man, leaning on my stick.
I knew that the two men had been talking about
me, and I knew that some terrible death was in
store for me. That night I could not sleep. I
tossed on the rough bed and tortured myself to find
out the meaning of it all. At last in the very dead
of night I rose from the bed, and put on my clothes,
and went out. I did not care where I went, but I
felt that I must walk till I had tired myself out.
It was a clear moonlight night, and in a couple of

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 43

hours I found I was approaching a place of dismal
reputation in the mountains, a deep cleft in the
rocks, known as Black Gulf Canon. Many years
before, an unfortunate party of Englishmen and
Englishwomen had camped here and had been sur-
rounded by Indians. They were captured, out-
raged, and put to death with almost inconceivable
tortures, and the roughest of the trappers or woods-
men gave the canon a wide berth even in the day-
time. As I crushed through the dense brushwood
which grew above the canon, I heard voices, and
wondering who could be in such a place at such a
time, I went on, walking more carefully and mak-
ing as little noise as possible. There was a great
tree growing on the very edge of the rocks, and I
lay down and looked out from behind the trunk.
Black Gulf Canon was below me, the moonlight
shining bright into its very depths from mid-
heaven, and casting shadows as black as death from
the pointed rock, and all the sheer rock on the
other side, overhanging the canon, was in darkness.
At intervals a light veil obscured the moonlight, as
a filmy cloud fleeted across the moon; and a bitter
wind blew shrill across the gulf. I looked down
as I have said,, and saw twenty men standing in a
semicircle round a rock; I counted them one by
one, and knew most of them. They were the very
vilest of the vile, more vile than any den in Lon-
don could show, and there was murder and worse
than murder on the heads of not a few. Facing
them and me stood Mr. Smith with the rock before
him, and on the rock was a great pair of scales,
such as are used in the stores. I heard his voice

44 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

ringing down the canon as I lay beside the tree,
and my heart turned cold as I heard it.

"Life for gold," he cried, "a life for gold. The
blood and the life of an enemy for every pound of
gold."

A man stepped out and raised one hand, and with
the other flung a bright lump of something into the
pan of the scales, which clanged down, and Smith
muttered something in his ear. Then he cried again :

"Blood for gold; for a pound of gold, the life
of an enemy. For every pound of gold upon the
scales, a life."

One by one the men came forward, each lifting
up his right hand ; and the gold was weighed in the
scales, and each time Smith leaned forward and
spoke to each man in his ear. Then he cried
again : —

"Desire and lust, for gold on the scales. For
every pound of gold, enjoyment of desire."

I saw the same thing happen as before; the up-
lifted hand, and the metal weighed, and the mouth
whispering, and black passion on every face.

Then, one by one, I saw the men again step up to
Smith. A muttered conversation seemed to take
place; I could see that Smith was explaining and
directing, and I noticed that he gesticulated a little
as one wjio points out the way, and once or twice he
moved his hands quickly as if he would show that the
path was clear and could not be missed. I kept my
eyes so intently on his figure that I noted little else,
and at last it was with a start that I realized that the
canon was empty. A moment before I thought I
had seen the group of villainous faces, and the two

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 45

standing, a little apart by the rock; I had looked
down a moment, and when I glanced again into the
canon there was no one there. In dumb terror I
made my way home, and I fell asleep in an instant
from exhaustion. No doubt I should have slept on
for many hours, but when I woke up, the sun was
only rising, and the light shone in on my bed. I
had started up from sleep with the sensation of
having received a violent shock, and as I looked in
confusion about me I saw to my amazement that there
were three men in the room. One of them had his
hand on my shoulder and spoke to me.

" Come, mister, wake up. Your time 9s up now, I
reckon, and the boys are waiting for you outside,
and they 're in a big hurry. Come on; you can put
on your clothes, it 's kind of chi]ly this morning."

I saw the other two men smiling sourly at each
other, but I understood nothing. I simply pulled
on my clothes, and said I was ready.

"All right, come on then. You go first, Nichols,
and Jim and I will give the gentleman an arm."

They took me out into the sunlight, and then I
understood the meaning of a dull murmur that had
vaguely perplexed me while I was dressing. There
were about two hundred men waiting outside, and
some women too, and when they saw me there was
a low muttering growl. I did not know what I
had done, but that noise made my heart beat and
the sweat come out on my face. I saw confusedly,
as through a veil, the tumult and tossing of the
crowd, discordant voices were speaking, and amongst
all those faces there was not one glance of mercy,
but a fury of lust that I did not understand. I

46 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

found myself presently walking in a sort of proces-
sion up the slope of the valley, and on every side of
me there were men with revolvers in their hands.
Now and then a voice struck me, and I heard words
and sentences of which I could form no connected
story. But I understood that there was one sen-
tence of execration; I heard scraps of stories that
seemed strange and improbable. Some one was talk-
ing of men, lured by cunning devices from their
homes and murdered with hideous tortures, found
writhing like wounded snakes in dark and lonely
places, only crying for some one to stab them to
the heart, and so end their torments; and I heard
another voice speaking of innocent girls who had
vanished for a day or two, and then had come back
and died, blushing red with shame even in the
agonies of death. I wondered what it all meant,
and what was to happen, but I was so weary that
I walked on in a dream, scarcely longing for any-
thing but sleep. At last we stopped. We had
reached the summit of the hill, overlooking Blue
Kock Valley, and I saw that I was standing beneath
a clump of trees where I had often sat. I was in
the midst of a ring of armed men, and I saw that
two or three men were very busy with piles of
wood, while others were fingering a rope. Then
there was a stir in the crowd, and a man was pushed
forward. His hands and feet were tightly bound
with cord, and though his face was unutterably vil-
lainous I pitied him for the agony that worked his
features and twisted his lips. I knew him; he was
amongst those that had gathered round Smith in
Black Gulf Canon. In an instant he was unbound,

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 47

and stripped naked, and borne beneath one of the
trees, and his neck encircled by a noose that went
around the trunk. A hoarse voice gave some kind of
order; there was a rush of feet, and the rope tight-
ened; and there before me I saw the blackened face
and the writhing limbs and the shameful agony of
death. One after another, half a dozen men, all of
whom I had seen in the canon the night before,
were strangled before me, and their bodies were
flung forth on the ground. Then there was a
pause, and the man who had roused me a short
while before, came up to me and said: —

"Now, mister, it's your turn. We give you five
minutes to cast up your accounts, and when that 's
clocked, by the living God we will bum you alive
at that tree."

It was then I awoke and understood. I cried
out: —

"Why, what have I done? Why should you hurt
me? I am a harmless man, I never did you any
wrong." I covered my face with my hands; it
seemed so pitiful, and it was such a terrible death.

" What have I done? " I cried again. " You must
take me for some other man. You cannot know
me."

"You black-hearted devil," said the man at my
side, "we know you well enough. There's not a
man within thirty miles of this that won't curse
Jack Smith when you are burning in hell."

"My name is not Smith," I said, with some hope
left in me. "My name is Wilkins. I was Mr.
Smith's secretary, but I knew nothing of him."
t "Hark at the black liar," said the man. "Secre-

48 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

tary be damned ! You were clever enough, I dare
say, to slink out at night, and keep your face in the
dark, but we 've tracked you out at last. But your
time 's up. Come along."

I was dragged to the tree and bound to it with
chains, and 1 saw the piles of wood heaped all
about me, and shut my eyes. Then I felt myself
drenched all over with some liquid, and looked
again, and a woman grinned at me. She had just
emptied a great can of petroleum over me and over
the wood. A voice shouted, "Fire away," and I
fainted and knew nothing more.

When I opened my eyes I was lying on a bed in a
bare comfortless room. A doctor was holding some
strong salts to my nostrils, and a gentleman stand-
ing by the bed, whom I afterwards found to be the
sheriff, addressed me : —

"Say, mister," he began, "you've had an uncom-
mon narrow squeak for it. The boys were just
about lighting up when I came along with the
posse, and I had as much as I could do to bring you
off, I can tell you. And, mind you, I don't blame
them; they had made up their minds, you see, that
you were the head of the Black Gulf gang, and at
first nothing I could say would persuade them you
were n't Jack Smith. Luckily, a man from here
named Evans, that came along with us, allowed he
had seen you with Jack Smith, and that you were
yourself. So we brought you along and jailed you,
but you can go if you like, when you 're through
with this faint turn."

I got on the cars the next day, and in three
weeks I was in London; again almost penniless.

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 49

But from that time my fortune seemed to change.
I made influential friends in all directions; bank
directors courted my company, and editors posi-
tively flung themselves into my arms. I had only
to choose my career, and after a while I determined
that I was meant by nature for a life of comparative
leisure. With an ease that seemed almost ridicu-
lous I obtained a well-paid position in connection
with a prosperous political club. I have charming
chambers in a central neighborhood close to the
parks ; the club chef exerts himself when I lunch
or dine, and the rarest vintages in the cellar are
always at my disposal. Yet, since my return to
London, I have never known a day's security or
peace; I tremble when I awake lest Smith should
be standing at my bed, and every step I take seems
to bring me nearer to the edge of the precipice.
Smith, I knew, had escaped free from the raid of
the vigilantes, and I grew faint at the thought that
he would in all probability return to London, and
that suddenly and unprepared I should meet him
face to face. Every morning as I left my house, I
would peer up and down the street, expecting to see
that dreaded figure awaiting me ; I have delayed at
street corners, my heart in my mouth, sickening at
the thought that a few quick steps might bring <us
together; I could not bear to frequent the theatres
or music halls, lest by some bizarre chance he
should prove to be my neighbor. Sometimes, I
have been forced, against my will, to walk out at
night, and then in silent squares the shadows have
made me shudder, and in the medley of meetings in
the crowded thoroughfares, I have said to myself,

4

50

THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"It must come sooner or later; he will surely return
to town, and I shall see him when I feel most
secure." I scanned the newspapers for hint or
intimation of approaching danger, and no small
type nor report of trivial interest was allowed to
pass unread. Especially I read and re-read the
advertisement columns, but without result. Months
passed by and I was undisturbed till, though I felt
far from safe, I no longer suffered from the intol-
erable oppression of instant and ever present terror.
This afternoon as I was walking quietly along Oxford
Street, I raised my eyes, and looked across the
road, and then at last I saw the man who had so
long haunted my thoughts.

Mr. Wilkins finished his wine, and leaned back
in his chair, looking sadly at Dyson; and then, as
if a thought struck him, fished out of an inner
pocket a leather letter case, and handed a news-
paper cutting across the table.

Dyson glanced closely at the slip, and saw that it
had been extracted from the columns of an evening
paper. It ran as follows : —

WHOLESALE LYNCHING.

SHOCKING STORY.

A Dalziel telegram from Reading (Colorado)
states that advices received there from Blue Eock
Park report a frightful instance of popular ven-
geance. For some time the neighborhood has been
terrorized by the crimes of a gang of desperadoes,
who, under the cover of a carefully planned organi-
zation, have perpetrated the most infamous cruelties

THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT. 51

on men and women. A Vigilance Committee was
formed, and it was found that the leader of the
gang was a person named Smith, living in Blue
Rock Park. Action was taken, and six of the
worst in the band were summarily strangled in the
presence of two or three hundred men and women.
Smith is said to have escaped.

"This is a terrible story," said Dyson; "I can
well believe that your days and nights are haunted
by such fearful scenes as you have described. But
surely you have no need to fear Smith? He has
much more cause to fear you. Consider : you have
only to lay your information before the police, arid
a warrant would be immediately issued for his
arrest. Besides, you will, I am sure, excuse me for
what I am going to say."

"My dear sir," said Mr. Wilkins, "I hope you
will speak to me with perfect freedom."

" Well, then, I must confess that my impression
was that you were rather disappointed at not being
able to stop the man before he drove off. I thought
you seemed annoyed that you could not get across
the street."

" Sir, I did not know what I was about. I caught
sight of the man, but it was only for a moment, and
the agony you witnessed was the agony of suspense.
I was not perfectly certain of the face; and the
horrible thought that Smith was again in London
overwhelmed me. I shuddered at the idea of this
incarnate fiend, whose soul is black with shocking
crimes, mingling free and unobserved amongst the
harmless crowds, meditating perhaps a new and

52 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

more fearful cycle of infamies. I tell you, sir , that
an awful being stalks through the streets, a being
before whom the sunlight itself should blacken,
and the summer air grow chill and dank. Such
thoughts as these rushed upon me with the force
of a whirlwind; I lost my senses."

"I see. I partly understand your feelings, but I
would impress on you that you have nothing really
to fear. Depend upon it, Smith will not molest
you in any way. You must remember he himself
has had a warning; and indeed from the brief
glance I had of him, he seemed to me to be a
frightened-looking man. However, I see it is get-
ting late, and if you will excuse me, Mr. Wilkins,
I think I will be going. I dare say we shall often
meet here."

Dyson walked off smartly, pondering the strange
story chance had brought him, and finding on cool
reflection that there was something a little strange
in Mr. Wilkins's manner, for which not even so
weird a catalogue of experiences could altogether
account.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING
BROTHER.

MR. CHARLES PHILLTPPS was, as has been hinted,
a gentleman of pronounced scientific tastes. In his
early days he had devoted himself with fond enthu-
siasm to the agreeable study of biology, and a brief
monograph on the Embryology of the Microscopic
Holothuria had formed his first contribution to the
belles lettres. Later, he had somewhat relaxed
the severity of his pursuits, and had dabbled in
the more frivolous subjects of palaeontology and
ethnology; he had a cabinet in his sitting-room
whose drawers were stuffed with rude flint imple-
ments, and a charming fetish from the South Seas
was the dominant note in the decorative scheme of
the apartment. Flattering himself with the title of
materialist, he was in truth one of the most credu-
lous of men, but he required a marvel to be neatly
draped in the robes of science before he would give
it any credit, and the wildest dreams took solid
shape to him if only the nomenclature were severe
and irreproachable; he laughed at the witch, but
quailed before the powers of the hypnotist, lift-
ing his eyebrows when Christianity was mentioned,
but adoring protyle and the ether. For the rest,
he prided himself on a boundless scepticism; the

54 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

average tale of wonder he heard with nothing but
contempt, and he would certainly not have credited
a word or syllable of Dyson's story of the pursuer
and pursued unless the gold coin had been produced
as visible and tangible evidence. As it was he half
suspected that Dyson had imposed on him ; he knew
his friend's disordered fancies, and his habit of
conjuring up the marvellous to account for the
entirely commonplace; and on the whole he was
inclined to think that the so-called facts in the odd
adventure had been gravely distorted in the telling.
Since the evening on which he had listened to the
tale, he had paid Dyson a visit, and had delivered
himself of some serious talk on the necessity of
accurate observation, and the folly, as he put it, of
using a kaleidoscope instead of a telescope in the
view of things, to which remarks his friend had
listened with a smile that was extremely sardonic.
"My dear, fellow," Dyson had remarked at last,
"you will allow me to tell you that I see your drift
perfectly. However, you will be astonished to hear
that I consider you to be the visionary, while I am
a sober and serious spectator of human life. You
have gone round the circle, and while you fancy
yourself far in the golden land of new philoso-
phies , you are in reality a dweller in a metaphori-
cal Clapham; your scepticism has defeated itself
and become a monstrous credulity; you are in fact
in the position of the bat or owl, I forget which it
was, who denied the existence of the sun at noon-
day, and I shall be astonished if you do not one
day come to me full of contrition for your manifold
intellectual errors, with a humble resolution to see

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 55

things in their true light for the future." This
tirade had left Mr. Phillipps unimpressed; he con-
sidered Dyson as hopeless, and he went home to
gloat over some primitive stone implements that a
friend had sent him from India. He found that
his landlady, seeing them displayed in all their
rude formlessness upon the table, had removed the
collection to the dustbin, and had replaced it by
lunch; and the afternoon was spent in malodorous
research. Mrs. Brown, hearing these stones spoken
of as very valuable knives, had called him in his
hearing "poor Mr. Phillipps," and between rage
and evil odors he spent a sorry afternoon. It was
four o'clock before he had completed his work of
rescue ; and, overpowered with the flavors of decay-
ing cabbage-leaves, Phillipps felt that he must have
a walk to gain an appetite for the evening meal.
Unlike Dyson, he walked fast, with his eyes on the
pavement, absorbed in his thoughts and oblivious
of the life around him ; and he could not have told
by what streets he had passed, when- he suddenly
lifted up his eyes and found himself in Leicester
Square. The grass and flowers pleased him, and
he welcomed the opportunity of resting for a few
minutes, and glancing round, he saw a bench which
had only one occupant, a lady, and as she was
seated at one end, Phillipps took up a position at
the other extremity, and began to pass in angry
review the events of the afternoon. He had noticed
as he came up to the bench that the person already
there ' was neatly dressed, and to all appearance
young; her face he could not see, as it was turned
away in apparent contemplation of the shrubs, and

56 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

moreover shielded with her hand; but it would be
doing wrong to Mr. Phillipps to imagine that his
choice of a seat was dictated by any hopes of an
affair of the heart; he had simply preferred the
company of one lady to that of five dirty children,
and having seated himself was immersed directly
in thoughts of his misfortunes. Pie had meditated
changing his lodgings ; but now, on a judicial review
of the case in all its bearings, his calmer judgment
told him that the race of landladies is like to the race
of the leaves, and that there was but little to choose
between them. He resolved, however, to talk to
Mrs. Brown, the offender, very coolly and yet
severely, to point out the extreme indiscretion of
her conduct, and to express a hope for better things
in the future. With this decision registered in his
mind, Phillipps was about to get up from the seat
and move off, when he was intensely annoyed to
hear a stifled sob, evidently from the lady, who
still continued her contemplation of the shrubs and
flower-beds. He clutched his stick desperately, and
in a moment would have been in full retreat, when
the lady turned her face towards him, and with a
mute entreaty bespoke his attention. She was a
young girl with a quaint and piquant rather than
a beautiful face, and she was evidently in the bit-
terest distress, and Mr. Phillipps sat down again,
and cursed his chances heartily. The young lady
looked at him with a pair of charming eyes of a
shining hazel, which showed no trace of tears, though
a handkerchief was in her hand ; she bit her lip,
and seemed to struggle with some overpowering
grief, and her whole attitude was all beseeching

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 57

and imploring. Phillipps sat on the edge of the
bench gazing awkwardly at her, and wondering
what was to come next, and she looked at him still
without speaking.

"Well, madam," he said at last, "I understood
from your gesture that you wished to speak to me.
Is there anything I can do for you? Though, if
you will pardon me, I cannot help saying that that
seems highly improbable."

"Ah, sir," she said in alow murmuring voice,
"do not speak harshly to me. I am in sore straits,
and I thought from your face that I could safely
ask your sympathy, if not your help."

" Would you kindly tell me what is the matter? "
said Phillipps. "Perhaps you would like some
tea? "

"I knew I could not be mistaken," the lady
replied. " That offer of refreshment bespeaks a gen-
erous mind. But tea, alas ! is powerless to console
me. If you will let me, I will endeavor to explain
my trouble."

"I should be glad if you would."

" I will do so, and I will try and be brief, in spite
of the numerous complications which have made
me, young as I am, tremble before what seems the
profound and terrible mystery of existence. Yet
the grief which now racks my very soul is but too
simple; I have lost my brother."

"Lost your brother! How on earth can that
be?"

"I see I must trouble you with a few particulars.
My brother, then, who is by some years my elder,
is a tutor in a private school in the extreme north

58 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

of London. The want of means deprived him of
the advantages of a University education; and lack-
ing the stamp of a degree, he could not hope for
that position which his scholarship and his talents
entitled him to claim. He was thus forced to ac-
cept the post of classical master at Dr. Saunderson's
Highgate Academy for the sons of gentlemen, and
he has performed his duties with perfect satisfac-
tion to his principal for some years. My personal
history need not trouble you; it' will be enough if
I tell you that for the last month I have been
governess in a family residing at Tooting. My
brother and I have always cherished the warmest
mutual affection; and though circumstances into
which I need not enter have kept us apart for some
time, yet we have never lost sight of one another.
We made up our minds that unless one of us was
absolutely unable to rise from a bed of sickness, we
would never let a week pass by without meeting,
and some time ago we chose this square as our ren-
dezvous on account of its central position and its
convenience of access. And indeed, after a week
of distasteful toil, my brother felt little inclination
for much walking, and we have often spent two or
three hours on this bench, speaking of our prospects
and of happier days, when we were children. In
the early spring it was cold and chilly; still we
enjoyed the short respite, and I think that we were
often taken for a pair of lovers, as we sat close
together, eagerly talking. Saturday after Saturday
we have met each other here, and though the doctor
told him it was madness, my brother would not
allow the influenza to break the appointment. That

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 59

was some time ago; last Saturday we had a long
and happy afternoon, and separated more cheerfully
than usual, feeling that the coming week would be
bearable, and resolving that our next meeting should
be if possible still more pleasant. I arrived here
at the time agreed upon, four o'clock, and sat
down and watched for my brother, expecting every
moment to see him advancing towards me from that
gate at the north side of the square. Five minutes
passed by, and he had not arrived; I thought he
must have missed his train, and the idea that our
interview would be cut short by twenty minutes, or
perhaps half an hour, saddened me; I had hoped we
should be so happy together to-day. Suddenly,
moved by I know not what impulse, I turned
abruptly round, and how can I describe to you my
astonishment when I saw my brother advancing
slowly towards me from the southern side of the
square, accompanied by another person. My first
thought, I remember, had in it something of resent-
ment that this man, whoever he was, should intrude
himself into our meeting; I wondered who it could
possibly be, for my brother had, I may say, no inti-
mate friends. Then as I looked still at the advan-
cing figures, another feeling took possession of me;
it was a sensation of bristling fear, the fear of the
child in the dark, unreasonable and unreasoning,
but terrible, clutching at my heart as with the cold
grip of a dead man's hands. Yet I overcame the
feeling, and looked steadily at my brother, waiting
for him to speak, and more closely at his com-
panion. Then I noticed that this man was leading
my brother rather than walking arm-in-arm with

60 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

him ; he was a tall man, dressed in quite ordinary
fashion. He wore a high bowler hat, and, in spite
of the warmth of the day, a plain black overcoat,
tightly buttoned, and I noticed his trousers, of a
quiet black and gray stripe. The face was com-
monplace too, and indeed I cannot recall any special
features, or any trick of expression; for though I
looked at him as he came near, curiously enough
his face made no impression on me, it was as
though I had seen a well-made mask. They passed
in front of me, and to my unutterable astonishment
I heard iny brother's voice speaking to me, though
his lips did not move, nor his eyes look into mine.
It was a voice I cannot describe, though I knew it,
but the words came to my ears as if mingled with
plashing water and the sound of a shallow brook
flowing amidst stones. I heard, then, the words,
* I cannot stay, ' and for a moment the heavens and
the earth seemed to rush together with the sound
of thunder, and I was thrust forth from the world
into a black void without beginning and without
end. For, as my brother passed me, I saw the
hand that held him by the arm, and seemed to guide
him, and in one moment of horror I realized that it
was as a formless thing that has mouldered for many
years in the grave. The flesh was peeled in strips
from the bones, and hung apart dry and granu-
lated, and the fingers that encircled my brother's
arm were all unshapen, claw-like things, and one
was but a stump from which the end had rotted off.
When I recovered my senses I saw the two passing
out by that gate. I paused for a moment, and then
with a rush as of fire to my heart I knew that no

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 61

horror could stay me, but that I must follow my
brother and save him, even though all hell rose up
against me. I ran out and looked up the pavement,
and saw the two figures walking amidst the crowd.
I ran across the road, and saw them turn up that
side street, and I reached the corner a moment later.
In vain I looked to right and left, for neither my
brother nor his strange guardian was in sight; two
elderly men were coming down arm-in-arm, and a
telegraph boy was walking lustily along whistling.
I remained there a moment horror-struck, and then
I bowed my head and returned to this seat, where
you found me. Now, sir, do you wonder at my
grief ? Oh, tell me what has happened to my
brother, or I feel I shall go mad."

Mr. Phillipps, who had listened with exemplary
patience to this tale, hesitated a moment before he
spoke.

" My dear madam, " he said at length, " you have
known how to engage me in your service, not only
as a man, but as a student of science. As a fellow-
creature I pity you most profoundly; you must have
suffered extremely from what you saw, or rather
from what you fancied you saw. For, as a scientific
observer, it is my duty to tell you the plain truth,
which, indeed, besides being true, must also console
you. Allow me to ask you 'then to describe your
brother."

"Certainly," said the lady, eagerly; "I can
describe him accurately. My brother is a some-
what young-looking man; he is pale, has small
black whiskers, and wears spectacles. He has
rather a timid, almost a frightened expression, and

62 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

looks about him nervously from side to side. Think,
think! Surely you must have seen him. Perhaps
you are an habitue of this engaging quarter; you
may have met him on some previous Saturday. I
may have been mistaken in supposing that he turned
up that side street; he may have gone on, and you
may have passed each other. Oh, tell me, sir,
whether you have not seen him?"

" I am afraid I do not keep a very sharp lookout
when I am walking," said Phillipps, who would
have passed his mother unnoticed; "but I am sure
your description is admirable. And now will you
describe the person, who, you say, held your
brother by the arm?"

"I cannot do so. I told you, his face seemed
devoid of expression or salient feature. It was
like a mask."

u Exactly; you cannot describe what you have
never seen. I need hardly point out to you the
conclusion to be drawn; you have been1 the victim
of an hallucination. You expected to see your
brother, you were alarmed because you did not see
him, and unconsciously, no doubt, your brain went
to work, and finally you saw a mere projection of
your own morbid thoughts ; a vision of your absent
brother, and a mere confusion of terrors incorpo-
rated in a figure which you can't describe. Of
course your brother has been in some way pre-
vented from coming to meet you as usual. I expect
you will hear from him in a day or two."

The lady looked seriously at Mr. Phillipps, and
then for a second there seemed almost a twinkling
as of mirth about her eyes, but her face clouded

ADVENTUKE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 63

sadly at the dogmatic conclusions to which the
scientist was led so irresistibly.

"Ah," she said, "you do not know. I cannot
doubt the evidence of my waking senses. Besides,
perhaps I have had experiences even more terrible.
I acknowledge the force of your arguments, but a
woman has intuitions which never deceive her.
Believe me, I am not hysterical} feel my pulse, it
is quite regular."

She stretched out her hand with a dainty gesture,
and a glance that enraptured Phillipps in spite of
himself. The hand held out to him was soft and
white and warm, and as, in some confusion, he
placed his fingers on the purple vein, he felt pro-
foundly touched by the spectacle of love and grief
before him.

"No," he said, as he released her wrist, "as you
say, you are evidently quite yourself. Still, you
must be aware that living men do not possess dead
hands. That sort of thing doesn't happen. It is,
of course, barely possible that you did see your
brother with another gentleman, and that impor-
tant business prevented him from stopping. As
for the wonderful hand, there may have been some
deformity, a finger shot off by accident, or some-
thing of that sort."

The lady shook her head mournfully.

"I see you are a determined rationalist," she said.
"Did you not hear me say that I have had expe-
riences even more terrible? I too was once a sceptic,
but after what I have known I can no longer affect
to doubt."

"Madam," replied Mr. Phillipps, "no one shall

64 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

make me deny my faith. I will never believe, nor
will I pretend to believe, that two and two make
five, nor will I on any pretences admit the existence
of two-sided triangles."

"You are a little hasty," rejoined the lady.
" But may I ask you if you ever heard the name of
Professor Gregg, the authority on ethnology and
kindred subjects?"

"I have done much more than merely hear of
Professor Gregg," said Phillipps. "I always re-
garded him as one of our most acute and clear-
headed observers; and his last publication, the
* Text-book of Ethnology, ' struck me as being quite
admirable in its kind. Indeed, the book had but
come into my hands when I heard of the terrible
accident which cut short Gregg's career. He had,
I think, taken a country house in the West of Eng-
land for the summer, and is supposed to have fallen
into a river. So far as I remember, his body was
never recovered."

" Sir, I am sure that you are discreet. Your con-
versation seems to declare as much, and the very
title of that little work of yours which you men-
tioned, assures me that you are no empty trifler.
In a word, I feel that I may depend on you. You
appear to be under the impression that Professor
Gregg is dead; I have no reason to believe that
that is the case."

"What?" cried Phillipps, astonished and per-
turbed. "You do not hint that there was anything
disgraceful? I cannot believe it. Gregg was a man
of clearest character; his private life was one of
great benevolence; and though I myself am free

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 65

from delusions, I believe him to have been a sincere
and devout Christian. Surely you cannot mean to
insinuate that some disreputable history forced him
to flee the country?"

"Again you are in a hurry," replied the lady.
"I said nothing of all this. Briefly, then, I .must
tell you that Professor Gregg left his house one
morning in full health both of mind and body. He
never returned, but ,his watch and chain, a purse
containing three sovereigns in gold and some loose
silver, with a ring that he wore habitually, were
found three days later on a wild and savage hill-
side, many miles from the river. These articles
were placed beside a limestone rock of fantastic
form ; they had been wrapped into a parcel with a
kind of rough parchment which was secured with
gut. The parcel was opened, and the inner side of
the parchment bore an inscription done with some
red substance; the characters were undecipherable,
but seemed to be a corrupt cuneiform."

"You interest me intensely," said Phillips.
"Would you mind continuing your story? The
circumstance you have mentioned seems to me of
the most inexplicable character, and I thirst for an
elucidation."

The young lady seemed to meditate for a moment,
and she then proceeded to relate the

NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL.

I must now give you some fuller particulars of my
history. I am the daughter of a civil engineer,
Steven Lally by name, who was so unfortunate as

5

66 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

to die suddenly at the outset of his career, and
before he had accumulated sufficient means to sup-
port his wife and her two children. My mother
contrived to keep the small household going on
resources which must have been incredibly small;
we lived in a remote country village, because most
of the necessaries of life were cheaper than in a
town, but even so we were brought up with the
severest economy. My father was a clever and
well-read man, and left behind him a small but
select collection of books, containing the best Greek,
Latin, and English classics, and these books were
the only amusement we possessed. My brother, I
remember, learned Latin out of Descartes' "Medita-
tiones," and I, in place of the little tales which
children are usually told to read, had nothing more
charming than a translation of the "Gesta Eoma-
norum." We grew up thus, quiet and studious chil-
dren, and in course of time my brother provided for
himself in the manner I have mentioned. I con-
tinued to live at home ; my poor mother had become
an invalid, and demanded my continual care, and
about two years ago she died after many months of
painful illness. My situation was a terrible one;
the shabby furniture barely sufficed to pay the
debts I had been forced to contract, and the books
I despatched to my brother, knowing how he would
value them. I was absolutely alone. I was aware
how poorly my brother was paid; and though I
came up to London in the hope of finding employ-
ment, with the understanding that he would defray
my expenses, I swore it should only be for a month,
and that if I could not in that time find some work,

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 67

I would starve rather than deprive him of the few
miserable pounds he had laid by for his day of
trouble. I took a little room in a distant suburb,
the cheapest that I could find. I lived on bread
and tea, and I spent my time in vain answering of
advertisements, and vainer walks to addresses I had
noted. Day followed on day, and week on week,
and still I was unsuccessful, till at last the term I
had appointed drew to a close, and I saw before me
the grim prospect of slowly dying of starvation.
My landlady was good-natured in her way; she
knew the slenderness of my means, and I am sure
that she would not have turned me out of doors.
It remained for me then to go away, and to try and
die in some quiet place. It was winter then, and
a thick white fog gathered in the early part of the
afternoon, becoming more dense as the day wore
on; it was a Sunday, I remember, and the people
of the house were at chapel. At about three o'clock
I crept out and walked away as quickly as I could,
for I was weak from abstinence. The white mist
wrapped all the streets in silence, and a hard frost
had gathered thick upon the bare branches of the
trees, and frost crystals glittered on the wooden
fences, and on the cold cruel ground beneath my
feet. I walked on, turning to right and left in
utter haphazard, without caring to look up at the
names of the streets, and all that I remember of
my walk on that Sunday afternoon seems but the
broken fragments of an evil dream. In a confused
vision I stumbled on, through roads half town and
half country; gray fields melting into the cloudy
world of mist on one side of me, and on the other

68 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

comfortable villas with a glow of firelight flickering
on the walls; but all unreal, red brick walls, and
lighted windows, vague trees, and glimmering coun-
try, gas-lamps beginning to star the white shadows,
the vanishing perspectives of the railway line be-
neath high embankments, the green and red of the
signal lamps, — all these were but momentary pic-
tures flashed on my tired brain and senses numbed
by hunger. Now and then I would hear a quick
step ringing on the iron road, and men would pass
me well wrapped up, walking fast for the sake
of warmth, and no doubt eagerly foretasting the
pleasures of a glowing hearth, with curtains tightly
drawn- about the frosted panes, and the welcomes
of their friends ; but as the early evening darkened
and night approached, foot-passengers got fewer
and fewer, and I passed through street after street
alone. In the white silence I stumbled on, as des-
olate as if I trod the streets of a buried city; and
as I grew more weak and exhausted, something of
the horror of death was folding thickly round my
heart. Suddenly, as I turned a corner, some one
accosted me courteously beneath the lamp-post, and
I heard a voice asking if I could kindly point the
way to Avon Road. At the sudden shock of human
accents I was prostrated and my strength gave way,
and I fell all huddled on the side-walk and wept
and sobbed and laughed in violent hysteria. I had
gone out prepared to die, and as I stepped across
the threshold that had sheltered me, I consciously
bade adieu to all hopes and all remembrances ; the
door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder,
and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 69

brief passages of my life, and that henceforth I was
to walk a little way in a world of gloom and shadow;
I entered on the stage of the first act of death.
Then came my wandering in the mist, the white-
ness wrapping all things, the void streets, and
muffled silence, till when that voice spoke to me,
it was as if I had died and life returned to me.
In a few minutes I was able to compose my feel-
ings, and as I rose I saw that I was confronted by
a middle-aged gentleman of specious appearance,
neatly and correctly dressed. He looked at me
with an expression of great pity, but before I could
stammer out my ignorance of the neighborhood, for
indeed I had not the slightest notion of where I
had wandered, he spoke.

" My dear madam, " he said, " you seem in some
terrible distress. You cannot think how you
alarmed me. But may I inquire the nature of your
trouble? I assure you that you can safely confide
in me."

"You are very kind," I replied; "but I fear there
is nothing to be done. My condition seems a hope-
less one."

" Oh, nonsense, nonsense ! You are too young to
talk like that. Come, let us walk down here, and
you must tell me your difficulty. Perhaps I may
be able to help you."

There was something very soothing and persua-
sive in his manner, and as we walked together, I
gave him an outline of my story, and told of the
despair that had oppressed me almost to death.

"You were wrong to give in so completely," he
said, when I was silent. " A month is too short a

70 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

time in which to feel one's way in London. Lon-
don, let me tell you, Miss Lally, does not lie open
and undefended; it is a fortified place, fossed and
double-moated with curious intricacies. As must
always happen in large towns, the conditions of
life have become hugely artificial; no mere simple
palisade is run up to oppose the man or woman who
would take the place by storm, but serried lines of
subtle contrivances, mines, and pitfalls which it
needs a strange skill to overcome. You, in your
simplicity, fancied you had only to shout for these
walls to sink into nothingness, but the time is gone
for such startling victories as these. Take cour-
age; you will learn the secret of success before
very long."

44 Alas, sir," I replied, "I have no doubt your
conclusions are correct, but at the present moment
I seem to be in a fair way to die of starvation.
You spoke of a secret; for heaven's sake, tell it me,
if you have any pity for my distress."

He laughed genially. "There lies the strange-
ness of it all. Those who know the secret cannot
tell it if they would; it is positively as ineffable as
the central doctrine of Freemasonry. But I may
say this, that you yourself have penetrated at least
the outer husk of the mystery," and he laughed
again.

" Pray do not jest with me," I said. " What have
I done, que sais-je? I am so far ignorant that I
have not the slightest idea of how my next meal is
to be provided."

"Excuse me. You ask what you have done?
You have met me. Come, we will fence no longer.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 71

I see you have self-education, the only education
which is not infinitely pernicious, and 1 am in want
of a governess for my two children. I have been
a widower for some years; my name is Gregg. I
offer you the post I have named, and shall we say
a salary of a hundred a year?"

I could only stutter out my thanks, and slipping
a card with his address and a bank-note by way of
earnest into my hand, Mr. Gregg bade me good-bye,
asking me to call in a day or two.

Such was my introduction to Professor Gregg, and
can you wonder that the remembrance of despair
and the cold blast that had blown from the gates
of death upon me, made me regard him as a second
father? Before the close of the week I was in-
stalled in my new duties ; the professor had leased
an old brick manor house in a western suburb of
London, and here, surrounded by pleasant lawns
and orchards, and soothed with the murmur of the
ancient elms that rocked their boughs above the
roof, the new chapter of my life began. Knowing
as you do the nature of the professor's occupations,
you will not be surprised to hear that the house
teemed with books; and cabinets full of strange
and even hideous objects lilled every available nook
in the vast low rooms. Gregg was a man whose
one thought was for knowledge, and I too before
long caught something of his enthusiasm, and strove
to enter into his passion for research. In a few
months I was perhaps more his secretary than the
governess of the two children, and many a night I
have sat at the desk in the glow of the shaded lamp
while he, pacing up and down in the rich gloom of

72 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

the firelight, dictated to me the substance of his
"Text-book of Ethnology." But amidst these more
sober and accurate studies I always detected a some-
thing hidden, a longing and desire for some object
to which he did not allude, and now and then he
would break short in what he was saying and lapse
into revery, entranced, as it seemed to me, by some
distant prospect of adventurous discovery. The
text-book was at last finished, and we began to
receive proofs from the printers, which were in-
trusted to me for a first reading, and then under-
went the final revision of the professor. All the
while nis weariness of the actual business he was
engaged on increased, and it was with the joyous
laugh of a schoolboy when term is over that he one
day handed me a copy of the book. "There, "he
said, "I have kept my word; I promised to write
it, and it is done with. Now I shall be free to live
for stranger things ; I confess it, Miss Lally, I covet
the renown of Columbus. You will, I hope, see me
play the part of an explorer."

"Surely," I said, "there is little left to explore.
You have been born a few hundred years too late
for that."

"I think you are wrong," he replied; "there are
still, depend upon it, quaint undiscovered countries
and continents of strange extent. Ah, Miss Lally,
believe me, we stand amidst sacraments and mys-
teries full of awe, and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be. Life, believe me, is no simple thing,
no mass of gray matter and congeries of veins and
muscles to be laid naked by the surgeon's knife;
man is the secret which I am about to explore, and

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 73

before I can discover him I must cross over welter-
ing seas indeed, and oceans and the mists of many
thousand years. You know the myth of the lost
Atlantis; what if it be true, and I am destined to
be called the discoverer of that wonderful land? "

I could see excitement boiling beneath his words,
and in his face was the heat of the hunter; before
me stood a man who believed himself summoned
to tourney with the unknown. A pang of joy pos-
sessed me when I reflected that I was to be in a
way associated with him in the adventure, and I
too burned with the last of the chase, not paus-
ing to consider that I knew not what we were to
unshadow.

The next morning Professor Gregg took me into
his inner study, where ranged against the wall
stood a nest of pigeon-holes, every drawer neatly
labelled, and the results of years of toil classified
in a few feet of space.

"Here," he said, "is my life; here are all the
facts which I have gathered together with so much
pains, and yet it is all nothing. No, nothing to
what I am about to attempt. Look at this;" and
he took me to an old bureau, a piece fantastic and
faded, which stood in a corner of the room. He
unlocked the front and opened one of the drawers.

"A few scraps of paper," he went on, pointing
to the drawer, " and a lump of black stone, rudely
annotated with queer marks and scratches, — that
is all that drawer holds. Here you see is an old
envelope with the dark red stamp of twenty years
ago, but I have pencilled a few lines at the back;
here is a sheet of manuscript, and here some cut-

74 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

tings from obscure local journals. And if you ask
me the subject matter of the collection, it will not
seem extraordinary. A servant girl at a farm-
house, who disappeared from her place and has
never been heard of, a child supposed to have
slipped down some old working on the mountains,
some queer scribbling on a limestone rock, a man
murdered with a blow from a strange weapon ; such
is the scent I have to go upon. Yes, as you say,
there is a ready explanation for all this ; the girl
may have run away to London, or Liverpool, or
New York; the child may be at the bottom of the
disused shaft; and the letters on the rock may be
the idle whims of some vagrant. Yes, yes, I admit
all that ; but I know I hold the true key. Look ! "
and he held me out a slip of yellow paper.

" Characters found inscribed on a limestone rock
on the Gray Hills," I read, and then there was a
word erased, presumably the name of a county, and
a date some fifteen years back. Beneath was traced
a number of uncouth characters, shaped somewhat
like wedges or daggers, as strange and outlandish
as the Hebrew alphabet.

"Now the seal," said Professor Gregg, and he
handed me the black stone, a thing about two
inches long, and something like an old-fashioned
tobacco stopper, much enlarged.

I held it up to the light, and saw to my surprise
the characters on the paper repeated on the seal.

"Yes," said the professor, "they are the same.
And the marks on the limestone rock were made
fifteen years ago, with some red substance. And
the characters on the seal are four thousand years
old at least. Perhaps much more."

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 7i3

"Is it a hoax?" I said.

" No, I anticipated that. I was not to be led to
give rny life to a practical joke. I have tested the
matter very carefully. Only one person besides
myself knows of the mere existence of that black
seal. Besides, there are other reasons which I
cannot enter into now."

"But what does it all mean?" I said. "I cannot
understand to what conclusion all this leads."

" My dear Miss Lally, that is a question I would
rather leave unanswered for some little time. Per-
haps I shall never be able to say what secrets are
held here in solution; a few vague hints, the out-
lines of village tragedies, a few marks done with
red earth upon a rock, and an ancient seal. A
queer set of data to go upon? Half-a-dozen pieces
of evidence, and twenty years before even so much
could be got together; and who knows what mirage
or terra incognita may be beyond all this? I look
across deep waters , Miss Lally, and the land beyond
may be but a haze after all. But still I believe it
is not so, and a few months will show whether I
am right or wrong."

He left me, and alone I endeavored to fathom
the mystery, wondering to what goal such eccentric
odds and ends of evidence could lead. I myself am
not wholly devoid of imagination, and I had reason
to respect the professor's solidity of intellect; yet I
saw in the contents of the drawer but the materials
of fantasy, and vainly tried to conceive what theory
could be founded on the fragments that had been
placed before me. Indeed, I could discover in what
I had heard and seen but the first chapter of an

76 THE THREE IMPOSTOES.

extravagant romance; and yet deep in my heart I
burned with, curiosity, and day after day I looked
eagerly in Professor Gregg's face for some hint of
what was to happen.

It was one evening after dinner that the word
came.

" I hope you can make your preparations without
much trouble," he said suddenly to me. "We shall
be leaving here in a week's time."

" Really ! " I said in astonishment. " Where are
we going? "

"I have taken a country house in the west of
England, not far from Caermaen, a quiet little town,
once a city, and the headquarters of a Koman legion.
It is very dull there, but the country is pretty, and
the air is wholesome."

I detected a glint in his eyes, and guessed that
this sudden move had some relation to our conver-
sation of a few days before.

"I shall just take a few books with me," said
Professor Gregg, " that is all. Everything else will
remain here for 'our return. I have got a holiday,"
he went on, smiling at me, " and I shan't be sorry
to be quit for a time of my old bones and stones
and rubbish. Do you know," he went on, "I have
been grinding away at facts for thirty years ; it is
time for fancies."

The days passed quickly ; I could see that the pro-
fessor was all quivering with suppressed excitement,
and I could scarce credit the eager appetence of his
glance as we left the old manor house behind us,
and began our journey. We set out at mid-day, and
it was in the dusk of the evening that we arrived

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 77

at a little country station. I was tired and excited,
and the drive through, the lanes seems all a dream.
First the deserted streets of a forgotten village,
while I heard Professor Gregg's voice talking of
the Augustan Legion and the clash of arms, and
all the tremendous pomp that followed the eagles ;
then the broad river swimming to full tide with
the last afterglow glimmering duskily in the yellow
water, the wide meadows, and the cornfields whiten-
ing, and the deep lane winding on the slope between
the hills and the water. At last we began to ascend,
and the air grew rarer; I looked down and saw the
pure white mist tracking the outline of the river
like a shroud, and a vague and shadowy country,
imaginations and fantasy of swelling hills and hang-
ing woods, and half-shaped outlines of hills beyond,
and in the distance the glare of the furnace fire on
the mountain, growing by turns a pillar of shining
flame, and fading to a dull point of red. We were
slowly mounting a carriage drive, and then there
came to me the cool breath and the scent of the
great wood that was above us; I seemed to wan-
der in its deepest depths, and there was the sound
of trickling water, the scent of the green leaves,
and the breath of the summer night. The carriage
stopped at last, and I could scarcely distinguish the
form of the house as I waited a moment at the
pillared porch; and the rest of the evening seemed
a dream of strange things bounded by the great
silence of the wood and the valley and the river.

The next morning when I awoke and looked out
of the bow window of the big old-fashioned bed-
room, I saw under a gray sky a country that was

78 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

still all mystery. The long, lovely valley, with the
river winding in and out below, crossed in mid
vision by a mediaeval bridge of vaulted and but-
tressed stone, the clear presence of the rising ground
beyond, and the woods that I had only seen in shadow
the night before, seemed tinged with enchantment,
and the soft breath of air that sighed in at the
opened pane was like no other wind. I looked
across the valley, and beyond, hill followed on hill
as wave on wave, and here a faint blue pillar of
smoke rose still in the morning air from the chim-
ney of an ancient gray farmhouse, there was a rugged
height crowned with dark firs, and in the distance
I saw the white streak of a road that climbed and
vanished into some unimagined country. But the
boundary of all was a great wall of mountain, vast
in the west, and ending like a fortress with a steep
ascent and a domed tumulus clear against the sky.

I saw Professor Gregg walking up and down the
terrace path below the windows, and it was evident
that he was revelling in the sense of liberty, and
the thought that he had, for a while, bidden good-
bye to task-work. When I joined him there was
exultation in his voice as he pointed out the sweep
of valley and the river that wound beneath the
lovely hills.

" Yes, " he said, " it is a strangely beautiful coun-
try; and to me, at least, it seems full of mystery.
You have not forgotten the drawer I showed you,
Miss Lally? No; and you have guessed that I have
come here not merely for the sake of the children
and the fresh air? "

"I think I have guessed as much as that," I

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 79

replied ; " but you must remember I do not know the
mere nature of your investigations ; and as for the
connection between the search and this wonderful
valley, it is past my guessing."

He smiled queerly at me. "You must not think
I am making a mystery for the sake of mystery,"
he said. " I do not speak out because, so far, there
is nothing to be spoken, nothing definite I mean,
nothing that can be set down in hard black and
white, as dull and sure and irreproachable as any
blue book. And then I have another reason : many
years ago a chance paragraph in a newspaper caught
my attention, and focussed in an instant the vagrant
thoughts and half-formed fancies of many idle and
speculative hours into a certain hypothesis. 1 saw
at once that I was treading on a thin crust; my
theor}7" was wild and fantastic in the extreme, and
I would not for any consideration have written a
hint of it for publication. But I thought that in
the company of scientific men like myself, men who
knew the course of discovery, and were aware that
the gas that blazes and flares in the gin-palace was
once a wild hypothesis; I thought that with such
men as these I might hazard my dream — let us
say Atlantis, -or the philosopher's stone, or what you
like — without danger of ridicule. I found I was
grossly mistaken ; my friends looked blankly at me
and at one another, and I could see something of
pity, and something also of insolent contempt, in
the glances they exchanged. One of them called on
me next day, and hinted that I must be suffering
from overwork and brain exhaustion. * In plain
terms, ' I said, ' you think I am going mad. I

80

THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

think not; ' and I showed him out with some little
appearance of heat. Since that day I vowed that I
would never whisper the nature of my theory to
any living soul; to no one but yourself have I ever
shown the contents of that drawer. After all, I
may be following a rainbow; I may have been
misled by the play of coincidence ; but as I stand
here in this mystic hush and silence amidst the
woods and wild hills, I am more than ever sure
that I am hot on the scent. Come, it is time we
went in."

To me in all this there was something both of
wonder and excitement; I knew how in his ordinary
work Professor Gregg moved step by step, testing
every inch of the way, and never venturing on
assertion without proof that was impregnable. Yet
I divined more from his glance and the vehemence
of his tone than from the spoken word that he had
in his every thought the vision of the almost in-
credible continually with him; and I, who was
with some share of imagination no little of a sceptic,
offended at a hint of the marvellous, could not help
asking myself whether he was cherishing a mono-
mania, and barring out from this one subject all the
scientific method of his other life.

Yet, with this image of mystery haunting my
thoughts, I surrendered wholly to the charm of the
country. Above the faded house on the hillside
began the great forest; a long dark line seen from
the opposing hills, /stretching above the river for
many a mile from north to south, and yielding in
the north to even wilder country , barren and savage
hills, and ragged common land, a territory all strange

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 81

and unvisited, and more unknown to Englishmen
than the very heart of Africa. The space of a
couple of steep fields alone separated the house
from the wood, and the children were delighted to
follow me up the long alleys of undergrowth, be-
tween smooth pleached walls of shining beech, to
the highest point in the wood, whence one looked
on one side across the river and the rise and fall
of the country to the great western mountain wall,
and on the other, over the surge and dip of the
myriad trees of the forest, over level meadows and
the shining yellow sea to the faint coast beyond.
I used to sit at this point on the warm sunlit turf
which marked the track of the Roman Road, while
the two children raced about hunting for the whin-
berries that grew here and there on the banks.
Here beneath the deep blue sky and the great
clouds rolling, like olden galleons with sails full-
bellied, from the sea to the hills, as I listened to
the whispered charm of the great and ancient wood,
I lived solely for delight, and only remembered
strange things when we would return to the house,
and find Professor Gregg either shut up in the
little room he had made his study, or else pacing
the terrace with the look, patient and enthusiastic,
of the determined seeker.

One morning, some eight or nine days after our
, arrival, I looked out of my window and saw the
whole landscape transmuted before me. The clouds
had dipped low and hidden the mountain in the
west, and a southern wind was driving the rain in
shifting pillars up the valley, and the little brooklet
that burst the hill below the house now raged, a

6

82 THE THREE IMPOSTOES.

red torrent, down to the river. We were perforce
obliged to keep snug within doors, and when I had
attended to my pupils, I sat down in the morning-
room where the ruins of a library still encumbered
an old-fashioned bookcase. I had inspected the
shelves once or twice, but their contents had failed
to attract me; volumes of eighteenth century ser-
mons, an old book on farriery, a collection of
"Poems " by "persons of quality," Prideaux's "Con-
nection," and an odd volume of Pope were the
boundaries of the library, and there seemed little
doubt that everything of interest or value had been
removed. Now, however, in desperation, I began
to re-examine the musty sheepskin and calf bind-
ings, and found, much to my delight, a fine old
quarto printed by the Stephani , containing the three
books of Pomponius Mela, "De Situ Orbis," and
other of the ancient geographers. I knew enough
of Latin to steer my way through an ordinary sen-
tence, and I soon became absorbed in the odd mix-
ture of fact and fancy; light shining on a little of
the space of the world, and beyond mist and shadow
and awful forms. Glancing over the clear-printed
pages, my attention was caught by the heading of a
chapter in Solinus, and I read the words : —

MIKA DE INTIMIS GEN^IBUS LIBYAE, DE LAPIDE
HEXECONTALITHO.

" The wonders of the people that inhabit the inner
parts of Libya, and of the stone called Sixtystoue."
The odd title attracted me and I read on : —

" Gens ista avia et secreta habitat, in montibus horrendis
foeda mysteria celebrat. De hominibus nihil aliud illi prae-

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 83

fenmt quam figuram, ab humano ritu prorsus exulant, ode-
runt deum lucis. Stridunt potius quam loquuntur; vox
absona nee sine horrore auditur. Lapide quodam gloriantur,
quern Hexecontalithon vocant; dicunt euim hunc lapidem
sexaginta notas ostendere. Cujus lapidis noinen secretum
ineflabile colunt : quod Ixaxar."

"This folk," I translated to myself, "dwells in
remote and secret places, and celebrates foul mys-
teries on savage hills. Nothing have they in com-
mon with men save the face, and the customs of
humanity are wholly strange to them; and they
hate the sun. They hiss rather than speak; their
voices are harsh, and not to be heard without fear.
They boast of a certain stone, which they call
Sixtystone ; for they say that it displays sixty char-
acters. And this stone has a secret unspeakable
name; which is Ixaxar."

I laughed at the queer inconsequence of all this,
and thought it fit for Sinbad the Sailor or other of
the supplementary Nights. When 1 saw Professor
Gregg in the course of the day, I told him of my
find in the bookcase, and the fantastic rubbish I had
been reading. To my surprise, he looked up at me
with an expression of great interest.

"That is really very curious," he said. "I have
never thought it worth while to look into the old
geographers, and I daresay I have missed a good
deal. Ah, that is the passage, is it. It seems a
shame to rob you of your entertainment, but I
really think I must carry off the book."

The next day the professor called to me to come
to the study. I found him sitting at a table in the
full light of the window, scrutinizing something
very attentively with a magnify ing-glass.

84 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

" Ah, Miss Lally," he began, "I want to use your
eyes. This glass is pretty good, but not like my
old one that I left in town. Would you mind
examining the thing yourself, and telling me how
many characters are cut on it? "

He handed me the object in his hand, and I saw
that it was the black seal he had shown me in Lon-
don, and my heart began to beat with the thought
that I was presently to know something. I took
the seal, and holding it up to the light checked off
the grotesque dagger-shaped characters one by one.

"I make sixty -two," I said at last.

"Sixty -two? Nonsense; it ''s impossible. Ah, I
see what you have done, you have counted that and
that," and he pointed to two marks which I had
certainly taken as letters with the rest.

"Yes, yes," Professor Gregg went on; "but those
are obvious scratches, done accidentally ; I saw that
at once. Yes, then that 's quite right. Thank you
very much, Miss Lally."

I was going away, rather disappointed at my
having been called in merely to count a number
of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there
flashed into my mind what I had read in the
morning.

"But, Professor Gregg," I cried, breathless, "the
seal, the seal. Why, it is the stone Hexecontali-
thos that Solinus writes of; it is Ixaxar."

"Yes," he said, "I suppose it is. Or it may be
a mere coincidence. It never does to be too sure,
you know, in these matters. Coincidence killed
the professor."

I went away puzzled by what I had heard, and as

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 85

much, as ever at a loss to find the ruling clew in this
maze of strange evidence. For three days the bad
weather lasted, changing from driving rain to a
dense mist, fine and dripping, and we seemed to be
shut up in a white cloud that veiled all the world
away from us. All the while Professor Gregg was
darkling in his room, unwilling, it appeared, to dis-
pense confidences or talk of any kind, and I heard
him walking to and fro with a quick, impatient
step, as if he were in some way wearied of inaction.
The fourth morning was fine, and at breakfast the
professor said briskly : —

"We want some extra help about the house; a
boy of fifteen or sixteen, you know. There are a
lot of little odd jobs that take up the maids' time,
which a boy could do much better."

"The girls have not complained to me in any
way," I replied. "Indeed, Anne said there was
much less work than in London, owing to there
being so little dust."

"Ah, yes, they are very good girls. But I think
we shall do much better with a boy. In fact, that
is what has been bothering me for the last two
days."

"Bothering you?" I said in astonishment, for
as a matter of fact the professor never took the
slightest interest in the affairs of the house.

"Yes," he said, "the weather, you know. I really
could n't go out in that Scotch mist; I don't know
the country very well, and I should have lost my
way. But I am going to get the boy this morning."

" But how do you know there is such a boy as
you want anywhere about?"

86 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"Oh, I have no doubt as to that. I may have to
walk a mile or two at the most, but I am sure to
find just the boy I require."

I thought the professor was joking, but though
his tone was airy enough there was something grim
and set about his features that puzzled me. He got
his stick, and stood at the door looking medita-
tively before him, and as I passed through the hall
he called to me.

"By the way, Miss Lally, there was one thing I
wanted to say to you. I daresay you may have
heard that some of these country lads are not over
bright; idiotic would be a harsh word to use, and
they are usually called ' naturals,' or something of
the kind. I hope you won't mind if the boy I am
after should ' turn out not too keen-witted ; he will
be perfectly harmless, of course, and blacking boots
doesn't need much mental effort."

With that he was gone, striding up the road that
led to the wood ; and I remained stupefied, and then
for the first time my astonishment was mingled
with a sudden note of terror, arising I knew not
whence, and all unexplained even to myself, and
yet I felt about my heart for an instant something
of the chill of death, and that shapeless, formless
dread of the unknown that is worse than death it-
self. I tried to find courage in the sweet air that
b}ew up from the sea, and in the sunlight after
rain, but the mystic woods seemed to darken around
me; and the vision of the river coiling between the
reeds, and the silver gray of the ancient bridge,
fashioned in my mind symbols of vague dread, as
the mind of a child fashions terror from things
harmless and familiar.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 87

Two hours later Professor Gregg returned. I
met him as he came down the road, and asked
quietly if he had been able to find a boy.

"Oh, yes," he answered; "I found one easily
enough. His name is Jervase Cradock, and I ex-
pect he will make himself very useful. His father
has been dead for many years, and the mother,
whom I saw, seemed very glad at the prospect of
a few shillings extra coming in on Saturday nights.
As I expected, he is not too sharp, has fits at times ,
the mother said; but as he will not be trusted with
the china, that does n't much matter, does it? And
he is not in any way dangerous, you know, merely
a little weak."

"When is he coming?"

" To-morrow morning at eight o'clock. Anne will
show him what he has to do, and how to do it. At
first he will go home every night, but perhaps it
may ultimately turn out more convenient for him
to sleep here, and only go. home for Sundays."

I found nothing to say to all this. Professor
Gregg spoke in a quiet tone of matter-of-fact, as
indeed was warranted by the circumstance; and
yet I could not quell my sensation of astonishment
at the whole affair. I knew that in reality no
assistance was wanted in the housework, and the
professor's prediction that the boy 'he was to engage
might prove a little "simple," followed by so exact
a fulfilment, struck me as bizarre in the extreme.
The next morning I heard from the housemaid that
the boy Cradock had come at eight, and that she
had been trying to make him useful. "He doesn't
seem quite all there, I don't think, miss," was her

88 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

comment; and later in the day I saw him helping
the old man who worked in the garden. He was a
youth of about fourteen, with black hair and black
eyes, and an olive skin, and I saw at once from the
curious vacancy of his expression that he was men-
tally weak. He touched his forehead awkwardly as
I went by, and I heard him answering the gardener
in a queer, harsh voice that caught my attention ; it
gave me the impression of some one speaking deep
below under the earth, and there was a strange sib-
ilance, like the hissing of the phonograph as the
pointer travels over the cylinder. I heard that he
seemed anxious to do what he could, and was quite
docile and obedient, and Morgan the gardener,
who knew his mother, assured me he was perfectly
harmless. "He's always been a bit queer," he
said, "and no wonder, after what his mother went
through before he was born. I did know his father,
Thomas Cradock, well, and a very tine workman he
was too, indeed. He got something wrong with
his lungs owing to working in the wet woods, and
never got over it, and went off quite sudden like.
And they do say as how Mrs. Cradock was quite off
her head; anyhow, she was found by Mr. Hillyer,
Ty Coch, all crouched up on the Gray Hills, over
there, crying and weeping like a lost soul. And
Jervase he was born about eight months after-
wards, and as I was saying, he was a bit queer
always; and they do say when he could scarcely
walk he would frighten the other children into fits
witli the noises he would make."

A word in the story had stirred up some remem-
brance within me, and vaguely curious, I asked the
old man where the Gray Hills were.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 89

"Up there," he said, with the same gesture he had
used before; "you go past the Fox and Hounds, and
through the forest, by the old ruins. It 7s a good
five mile from here, and a strange sort of a place.
The poorest soil between this and Monmouth, they
do say, though it 7s good feed for sheep. Yes, it
was a sad thing for poor Mrs. Cradock."

The old man turned to his work, and I strolled
on down the path between the espaliers, gnarled
and gouty with age, thinking of the story I had
heard, and groping for the point in it that had
some key to my memory. In an instant it came
before me ; I had seen the phrase " Gray Hills "
on the slip of yellowed paper that Professor Gregg
had taken from the drawer in his cabinet. Again
I was seized with pangs of mingled curiosity and
fear; I remembered the strange characters copied
from the limestone rock, and then again their iden-
tity with the inscription on the age-old seal, and
the fantastic fables of the Latin geographer. I saw
beyond doubt that, unless coincidence had set all
the scene and disposed all these bizarre events with
curious art, I was to be a spectator of things far
removed from the usual and customary traffic and
jostle of life. Professor Gregg I noted day by day.
He was hot on his trail, growing lean with eager-
ness ; and in the evenings, when the sun was swim-
ming on the verge of the mountain, he would pace
the terrace to and fro with his eyes on the ground,
while the mist grew white in the valley, and the
stillness of the evening brought far voices near,
and the blue smoke rose a straight column from the
diamond-shaped chimney of the gray farmhouse,

90 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

just as I had seen it on the first morning. I have
told you I was of sceptical habit; but though I
understood little or nothing, I began to dread, vainly
proposing to myself the iterated dogmas of science
that all life is material, and that in the system of
things there is no undiscovered land even beyond
the remotest stars, where the supernatural can find
a footing. Yet there struck in on this the thought
that matter is as really awful and unknown as
spirit, that science itself but dallies on the thresh-
old, scarcely gaining more than a glimpse of the
wonders of the inner place.

There is one day that stands up from amidst the
others as a grim red beacon, betokening evil to
come. I was sitting on a bench in the garden,
watching the boy Cradock weeding, when I was
suddenly alarmed by a harsh and choking sound,
like the cry of a wild beast in anguish, and I was
unspeakably shocked to see the unfortunate lad
standing in full view before me, his whole body
quivering and shaking at short intervals as though
shocks of electricity were passing through him, and
his teeth grinding, and foam gathering on his lips,
and his face all swollen and blackened to a hideous
mask of humanity. I shrieked with terror, and
Professor Gregg came running; and as I pointed to
Cradock, the boy with one. convulsive shudder fell
face forward, and lay on the wet earth, his body
writhing like a wounded blind-worm, and an incon-
ceivable babble of sounds bursting and rattling and
hissing from his lips; he seemed to pour forth an
infamous jargon, with words, or what seemed words,
that might have belonged to a tongue dead since

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 91

untold ages, and buried deep beneath Nilotic mud,
or in the inmost recesses of the Mexican forest.
For a moment the thought passed through my mind,
as my ears were still revolted with that infernal
clamor, " Surely this is the very speech of hell," and
then I cried out again and again, and ran away
shuddering to my inmost soul. I had seen Pro-
fessor Gregg's face as he stooped over the wretched
boy and raised him, and I was appalled by the
glow of exultation that shone on every lineament
and feature. As I sat in. my room with drawn
blinds, and my eyes hidden in my hands, I heard
heavy steps beneath, and I was told afterwards that
Professor Gregg had carried Cradock to his study,
and had locked the door. I heard voices murmur
indistinctly, and I trembled to think of what might
be passing within a few feet of where I sat; I
longed to escape to the woods and sunshine, and
yet I dreaded the sights that might confront me on
the way. And at last, as I held the handle of the
door nervously J I heard Professor Gregg's voice
calling to me with a cheerful ring : " It 's all right
now, Miss Lally," he said. "The poor fellow has
got over it, and I have been arranging for him to
sleep here after to-morrow. Perhaps I may be able
to do something for him."

"Yes, "he said later, "it was a very painful sight,
and I don't wonder you were alarmed. We may
hope that good food will build him up a little, but
I am afrad he will never be really cured; " and he
affected the dismal and conventional air with which
one speaks of hopeless illness, and yet beneath it I
detected the delight that leapt up rampant within

92 THE THKEE IMPOSTORS.

him, and fought and struggled to find utterance.
It was as if one glanced down on the even surface
of the sea, clear and immobile, and saw beneath
raging depths, and a storm of contending billows.
It was indeed to me a torturing and offensive prob-
lem that this man, who had so bounteously rescued
me from the sharpness of death, and showed himself
in all the relations of life full of benevolence and
pity and kindly forethought, should so manifestly
be for once on the side of the demons, and take a
ghastly pleasure in the torments of an afflicted fel-
low-creature. Apart, I struggled with the horned
difficulty, and strove to find the solution, but with-
out the hint of a clue ; beset by mystery and contra-
diction, I saw nothing that might help me, and
began to wonder whether, after all, I had not
escaped from the white mist of the suburb at too
dear a rate. I hinted something of my thought to
the professor; I said enough to let him know that I
was in the most acute perplexity, but the moment
after regretted what I had done, when I saw his
face contort with a spasm of pain.

"My dear Miss Lally," he said, /'you surely do
not wish to leave us? No, no, you would not do it.
You do not know how I rely on you; how confi-
dently I go forward, assured that you are here to
watch over my children. You, Miss Lally, are my
rear-guard; for, let me tell you, that the business in
which I am engaged is not wholly devoid of peril.
You have not forgotten what I said the first morn-
ing here; my lips are shut by an old and firm
resolve, till they can open to utter no ingenious
hypothesis or vague surmise but irrefragable fact,

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 93

as certain as a demonstration in mathematics.
Think over it, Miss Lally, not for a moment would
I endeavor to keep you here against your own
instincts, and yet I tell you frankly that I am per-
suaded that it is here, here amidst the woods, that
your duty lies."

I was touched by the eloquence of his tone, and
by the remembrance that the man, after all, had
been my salvation, and I gave him my hand on a
promise to serve him loyally and without question.
A few days later the rector of our church, a little
church, gray and severe and quaint, that hovered on
the very banks of the river and watched the tides
swim and return, came to see us, and Professor
Gregg easily persuaded him to stay and share our
dinner. Mr. Meyrick was a member of an antique
family of squires, whose old manor house stood
amongst the hills some seven miles away, and thus
rooted in the soil, the rector was a living store of
all the old fading customs and lore of the country.
His manner, genial with a deal of retired oddity,
won on Professor Gregg; and towards the cheese,
when a curious Burgundy had begun its incanta-
tions, the two men glowed like the wine, and talked
of philology with the enthuiasm of a burgess over
the peerage. The parson was expounding the pro-
nunciation of the Welsh II, and producing sounds
like the gurgle of his native brooks, when Professor
Gregg struck in.

"By the way," he said, "that was a very odd
word I met with the other day. You know my
boy, poor Jervase Cradock. Well, he has got the bad
habit of talking to himself, and the day before yes-

94 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

terday I was walking in the garden here and heard
him; he was evidently quite unconscious of my
presence. A lot of what he said I couldn't' make
out, but one word struck me distinctly. It was
such an odds ound; half-sibilant, half-guttural, and
as quaint as those double I's you have been demon-
strating. I do not know whether I can give you an
idea of the sound. " Ishakshar " is perhaps as near
as I can get ; but the k ought to be a Greek chi or
a Spanish^'. Now what does it mean in Welsh?"

"In Welsh?" said the parson. "There is no
such word in Welsh, nor any word remotely resem-
bling it. I know the book-Welsh, as they call it,
and the colloquial dialects as well as any man, but
there 's no word like that from Anglesea to Usk.
Besides, none of the Cradocks speak a word of
Welsh; it's dying out about here."

"Beally. You interest me extremely, Mr. Mey-
rick. I confess the word did n't strike me as hav-
ing the Welsh ring. But I thought it might be
some local corruption."

" No, I never heard such a word, or anything like
it. Indeed," he added, smiling whimsically, "if it
belongs to any language, I should say it must be
that of the fairies, — the Tylwydd Teg, as we call
them."

The talk went on to the discovery of a Roman
villa in the neighborhood ; and soon after I left the
room, and sat down apart to wonder at the draw-
ing together of such strange clues of evidence. As
the professor had spoken of the curious word, I had
caught the glint of his eye upon me ; and though
the pronunciation he gave was grotesque in the

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 95

extreme, I recognized the name of the stone of
sixty characters mentioned by Solinus, the black
seal shut up in some secret drawer of the study,
stamped forever by a vanished race with signs that
no man could read, signs that might , for all I knew,
be the veils of awful things done long ago, and
forgotten before the hills were moulded into form.

When, the next morning, I came down, I found
Professor Gregg pacing the terrace in his eternal walk.

"Look at that bridge," he said when he saw me,
"observe the quaint and Gothic design, the angles
between the arches, and the silvery gray of the
stone in the awe of the morning light. I confess it
seems to me symbolic; it should illustrate a mystical
allegory of the passage from one world to another."

"Professor Gregg," I said quietly, "it is time
that I knew something of what has happened, and
of what is to happen."

For the moment he put me off, but I returned
again with the same question in the evening, and
then Professor Gregg flamed with excitement.
"Don't you understand yet?" he cried. "But I
have told you a good deal; yes, and shown you a
good deal. You have heard pretty nearly all that
I have heard, and seen what I have seen; or at
least," and his voice chilled as he spoke, " enough
to make a good deal clear as noonday. The ser-
vants told you, I have no doubt, that the wretched
boy Cradock had another seizure the night before
last; he awoke me with cries in that voice you
heard in the garden, and I went to him, and God
forbid you should see what I saw that night. But
all this is useless ; my time here is drawing to a close ;

96 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

I must be back in town in three weeks, as I have a
course of lectures to prepare, and need all my books
about me. In a very few days it will be all over,
and I shall no longer hint, and no longer be liable
to ridicule as a madman and a quack. No, I shall
speak plainly, and I shall be heard with such emo-
tions as perhaps no other man has ever drawn from
the breasts of his fellows.57

He paused, and seemed to grow radiant with the
joy of great and wonderful discovery.

"But all that is for the future, the near future
certainly, but still the future," he went on at
length. "There is something to be done yet; you
will remember my telling you that my researches
were not altogether devoid of peril? Yes, there is
a certain amount of danger to be faced; I did not
know how much when I spoke on the subject before,
and to a certain extent I am still in the dark. But
it will be a strange adventure, the last of all, the
last demonstration in the chain."

He was walking up and down the room as he
spoke, and I could hear in his voice the contending
tones of exultation and despondence, or perhaps I
should say awe, the awe of a man who goes forth
on unknown waters, and I thought of his allusion
to Columbus on the night he had laid his book
before me. The evening was a little chilly, and a
fire of logs had been lighted in the study where we
were, and the remittent flame and the glow on the
walls reminded me of the old days. I was sitting
silent in an arm-chair by the fire, wondering over
all I had heard, and still vainly speculating as to
the secret springs concealed from me under all the

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 97

phantasmagoria I had witnessed, when I became
suddenly aware of a sensation that change of some
sort had been at work in the room, and that there
was something unfamiliar in its aspect. For some
time I looked about me, trying in vain to localize
the alteration that I knew had been made ; the table
by the window, the chairs, the faded settee were all
as I had known them. Suddenly, as a sought-for
recollection flashes into the mind, I knew what was'
amiss. I was facing the professor's desk, which
stood on the other side of the lire, and above the
desk was a grimy looking bust of Pitt, that I had
never seen there before. And then I remembered
the true position of this work of art; in the furthest
corner by the door was an old cupboard, projecting
into the room, and on the top of the cupboard,
fifteen feet from the floor, the bust had been, and
there no doubt it had delayed, accumulating dirt
since the early years of the century.

I was utterly amazed, and sat silent still, in
a confusion of thought. There was, so far as I
knew, no such thing as a step-ladder in the house,
for I had asked for one to make some alterations in
the curtains of my room ; and a tall man standing
on a chair would have found it impossible to take
down the bust. It had been placed not on the edge
of the cupboard, but far back against the wall ; and
Professor Gregg was, if anything, under the average
height.

"How on earth did you manage to get down
Pitt?" I said at last.

The professor looked curiously at me, and seemed
to hesitate a little.

7

98 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"They must have found you a step-ladder, or per-
haps the gardener brought in a short ladder from
outside."

"No, I have had no ladder of any kind. Now,
Miss Lally," he went on with an awkward simula-
tion of jest, "there is a little puzzle for you; a
problem in the manner of the inimitable Holmes;
there are the facts, plain and patent; summon
your acuteness to the solution of the puzzle. For
Heaven's sake," he cried with a breaking voice,
" say no more about it. I tell you, I never touched
the thing," and he went out of the room with horror
manifest on his face, and his hand shook and jarred
the door behind him.

I looked round the room in vague surprise, not at
all realizing what had happened, making vain and
idle surmises by way of explanation, and wondering
at the stirring of black waters by an idle word, and
the trivial change of an oranment. " This is some
petty business, some whim on which I have jarred,"
I reflected; "the professor is perhaps scrupulous
and superstitious over trifles, and my question may
have outraged unacknowledged fears, as though one
killed a spider or spilled the salt before the very
eyes of a practical Scotchwoman." I was immersed
in these fond suspicions, and began to plume myself
a little on my immunity from such empty fears,
when the truth fell heavily as lead upon my heart,
and I recognized with cold terror that some awful
influence had been at work. The bust was simply
inaccessible; without a ladder no one could have
touched it.

T went out to the kitchen and spoke as quietly as
I could to the housemaid.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 99

" Who moved that bust from the top of the cup-
board, Anne?" I said to her. "Professor Gregg
says he has not touched it. Did you find an old
step-ladder in one of the outhouses ?"

The girl looked at me blankly.

"I never touched it," she said. "I found it
where it is now the other morning when I dusted
the room. I remember now, it was Wednesday
morning, because it was the morning after Cradock
was taken bad in the night. My room is next to
his, you know, miss," the girl went on piteously;
"and it was awful to hear how he cried and called
out names that I could n't understand. It made me
feel all afraid, and then master came, and I heard
him speak, and he took down Cradock to the study
and gave him something."

"And you found that bust moved the next
morning ? "

"Yes, miss, there was a queer sort of a smell in
the study when I came down and opened the win-
dows; a bad smell it was, and I wondered what it
could be. Do you know, miss, I went a long time
ago to the Zoo in London with my cousin Thomas
Barker, one afternoon that I had off, when I was at
Mrs. Prince's in Stanhope Gate, and we went into
the snake-house to see the snakes, and it was just
the same sort of a smell, very sick it made me feel,
I remember, and I got Barker to take me out. And
it was just the same kind of a smell in the study, as
I was saying, and I was wondering what it could
be from, when I see that bust with Pitt cut in it
standing on the master's desk, and I thought to
myself, now who has done that, and how have they

100 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

done it ? And when I came to dust the things, I
looked at the bust, and I saw a great mark on it
where the dust was gone, for I don't think it can
have been touched with a duster for years and years,
and it was n't like finger-marks, but a large patch
like, broad and spread out. So I passed my hand
over it, without thinking what I was doing, and
where that patch was it was all sticky and slimy,
as if a snail had crawled over it. Very strange,
is n't it, miss ? and I wonder who can have done it,
and how that mess was made."

The well-meant gabble of the servant touched me
to the quick. I lay down upon my bed, and bit my
lip that I should not cry out' loud in the sharp
anguish of my terror and bewilderment. Indeed, I
was almost mad with dread; I believe that if it had
been daylight I should have fled hot foot, forgetting
all courage and all the debt of gratitude that was
due to Professor Gregg, not caring whether my fate
were that I must starve slowly so long as I might
escape from the net of blind and panic fear that
every day seemed to draw a little closer round me.
If I knew, I thought, if I knew what there were
to dread, I could guard against it; but here, in
this lonely house, shut in on all sides by the olden
woods and the vaulted hills, terror seems to spring
inconsequent from every covert, and the flesh is
aghast at the half -heard murmurs of horrible things.
All in vain I strove to summon scepticism to my
aid, and endeavored by cool common-sense to but-
tress my belief in a world of natural order, for the
air that blew in at the open window was a mystic
breath, and in the darkness I felt the silence go

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 101

heavy and sorrowful as a mass of requiem, and I
conjured images of strange shapes gathering fast
amidst the reeds, beside the wash of the river.

In the morning, from the moment that I set foot
in the breakfast-room I felt that the unknown plot
was drawing to a crisis; the professor's face was
firm and set, and he seemed hardly to hear our
voices when we spoke.

"I am going out for rather a long walk," he said,
when the meal was over. " You must n't be expect-
ing me, now, or thinking anything has happened
if I don't turn up to dinner. 1 have been getting
stupid lately, and I dare say a miniature walking
tour will do me good. Perhaps I may even spend
the night in some little inn, if I find any place that
looks clean and comfortable."

I heard this, and knew by my experience of Pro-
fessor Gregg's manner that it was no ordinary busi-
ness or pleasure that impelled him. I knew not,
nor even remotely guessed, where he was bound, nor
had I the vaguest notion of his errand, but all the
fear of the night before returned; and as he stood,
smiling, on the terrace, ready to set out, I implored
him to stay, and to forget all his dreams of the
undiscovered continent.

"No, no, Miss Lally," he replied, still smiling,
"it's too late now. Vestigia nulla retrorsum, you
know, is the device of all true explorers, though I
hope it won't be literally true in my case. But,
indeed, you are wrong to alarm yourself so ; I look
upon my little expedition as quite commonplace;
no more exciting than a day with the geological
hammers. There is a risk, of course, but so there

102 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

is on the commonest excursion. I can afford to be
jaunty; I am doing nothing so hazardous as 'Arry
does a hundred times over in the course of every
Bank Holiday. Well, then, you must look more
cheerfully; 'and so good-by till to-morrow at latest."

He walked briskly up the road, and I saw him
open the gate that marks the entrance of the wood,
and then he vanished in the gloom of the trees.

All the day passed heavily with a strange dark-
ness in the air, and again I felt as if imprisoned
amidst the ancient woods, shut in an olden land of
mystery and dread, and as if all was long ago and for-
gotten by the living outside. I hoped and dreaded,
and when the dinner-hour came, I waited expecting
to hear the professor's step in the hall, and his
voice exulting at I knew not what triumph. I com-
posed my face to welcome him gladly, but the night
descended dark, and he did not come.

In the morning when the maid knocked at my
door, I called out to her, and asked if her master
had returned; and when she replied that his bed-
room stood open and empty, I felt the cold clasp of
despair. Still, I fancied he might have discovered
genial company, and would return for luncheon, or
perhaps in the afternoon, and I took the children
for a walk in the forest, and tried my best to play
and laugh with them, and to shut out the thoughts
of mystery and veiled terror. Hour after hour I
waited, and my thoughts grew darker; again the
night came and found me watching, and at last, as I
was making much ado to finish my dinner, I heard
steps outside and the sound of a man's voice.

The maid came in and looked oddly at me.

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 103

"Please, miss,7' she began, "Mr. Morgan the gar-
dener wants to speak to you fora minute, if you
did n't mind."

"Show him in, please," I answered, and I set my
lips tight.

The old man came slowly into the room, and the
servant shut the door behind him.

"Sit down, Mr. Morgan," I said; "what is it that
you want to say to me?"

" Well, miss, Mr. Gregg he gave me something
for you yesterday morning, just before he went off;
and he told me particular not to hand it up before
eight o'clock this evening exactly, if so be as he
wasn't back again home before, and if he should
come home before I was just to return it to him in
his own hands. So, you see, as Mr. Gregg is n't
here yet, I suppose I 'd better give you the parcel
directly."

He pulled out something from his pocket, and
gave it to me, half rising. I took it silently, and
seeing that Morgan seemed doubtful as to what he
was tojio next, I thanked him and bade him good-
night, and he went out. I was left alone in the
room with the parcel in my hand, — a paper parcel
neatly sealed and directed to me, with the instruc-
tions Morgan had quoted all written in the profes-
sor's large loose hand. I broke the seals with a
choking at my heart, and found an envelope inside,
addressed also, but open, and I took the letter out.

" MY DEAR Miss LALLY," it began, " To quote the old
logic manual, the case of your reading this note is a case of
iny having made a blunder of some sort, and, I am afraid, a

104 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

blunder that turns these lines into a farewell. It is prac-
tically certain that neither you nor anyone else will ever see
me again. I have made my will with provision for this
eventuality, and I hope you will consent to accept the small
remembrance addressed to you, and my sincere thanks for
the way in which you joined your fortunes to mine. The
fate which has come upon me is desperate and terrible beyond
the remotest dreams of man ; but this fate you have a right to
know — if you please. If you look in the left-hand drawer
of my dressing-table, you vrill find the key of the escritoire,
properly labelled. In the well of the escritoire is a large
envelope sealed and addressed to your name. 1 advise you
to throw it forthwith into the fire ; you will sleep better of
nights if you do so. But if you must know the history of
what has happened, it is all written down for you to read."

The signature was firmly written below , and again
I turned the page and read out the words one by
one, aghast and white to the lips, my hands cold as
ice, and sickness choking me. The dead silence of
the room, and the thought of the dark woods and
hills closing me in on every side, oppressed me,
helpless and without capacity, and not knowing
where to turn for counsel. At last I resolved that
though knowledge should haunt my whole life and
all the days to come, I must know the meaning of
the strange terrors that had so long tormented me,
rising gray, dim, and awful, like the shadows in
the wood at dusk. I carefully carried out Professor
Gregg's directions, and not without reluctance broke
the seal of the envelope, and spread out his manu-
script before me. That manuscript I always carry
with me, and I see that I cannot deny your un-
spoken request to read it. This, then, was what I

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 105

read that night, sitting at the desk, with a shaded
lamp beside ine.

The young lady who called herself Miss Lally
then proceeded to recite : —

The Statement of William Gregg, F. E. S., etc.

It is many years since the first glimmer of the
theory which is now almost , if not quite , reduced to
fact dawned first on my mind. A somewhat exten-
sive course of miscellaneous and obsolete reading
had done a good deal to prepare the way, and, later,
when I became somewhat of a specialist and im-
mersed myself in the studies known as ethnological,
I was now and then startled by facts that would not
square with orthodox scientific opinion, and by dis-
coveries that seemed to hint at something still hid-
den for all our research. More particularly I became
convinced that much of the folk-lore of the world is
but an exaggerated account of events that really hap-
pened, and I was especially drawn to consider the
stories of the fairies, the good folk of the Celtic races.
Here I thought I could detect the fringe of embroi-
dery and exaggeration, the fantastic guise, the little
people dressed in green and gold sporting in the
flowers, and I thought I saw a distinct analogy be-
tween the name given to this race (supposed to be
imaginary) and the description of their appearance
and manners. Just as our remote ancestors called
the dreaded beings "fair" and "good" precisely
because they dreaded them, so they had dressed
them up in charming forms, knowing the truth to

106 THE THEEE IMPOSTOES.

be the very reverse. Literature, too, had gone early
to work, and had lent a powerful hand in the trans-
formation, so that the playful elves of Shakespeare
are already far removed from the true original, and
the real horror is disguised in a form of prankish
mischief. But in the older tales, the stories that
used to make men cross themselves as they sat
round the burning logs, we tread a different stage;
I saw a widely opposed spirit in certain histories
of children and of men and women who vanished
strangely from the earth. They would be seen by
a peasant in the fields walking towards some green
and rounded hillock, and seen no more on earth;
and there are stories of mothers who have left a
child quietly sleeping with the cottage door rudely
barred with a piece of wood, and have returned, not
to find the plump and rosy little Saxon, but a thin
and wizened creature, with sallow skin and black
piercing eyes, the child of another race. Then,
again, there were myths darker still; the dread of
witch and wizard, the lurid evil of the Sabbath,
and the hint of demons who mingled with the
daughters of men. And just as we have turned the
terrible " fair folk " into a company of benignant, if
freakish, elves, so we have hidden from us the black
foulness of the witch and her companions under a
popular diablerie of old women and broomsticks
and a comic cat with tail on end. So the Greeks
called the hideous furies benevolent ladies, and thus
the northern nations have followed their example.
I pursued my investigations, stealing odd hours
from other and more imperative labors, and I
asked myself the question : Supposing these tradi-

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 107

tions to be true, who were the demons who are
reported to have attended the Sabbaths? I need
not say that I laid aside what I may call the super-
natural hypothesis of the middle ages, and came
to the conclusion that fairies and devils were of
one and the same race and origin} invention, no
doubt, and the Gothic fancy of old days had done
much in the way of exaggeration and distortion;
yet I firmly believed that beneath all this imagery
there was a black background of truth. As for
some of the alleged wonders, I hesitated. While
I should be very loth to receive any one specific
instance of modern spiritualism as containing even
a grain of the genuine, yet I was not wholly pre-
pared to deny that human flesh may now and then,
once perhaps in ten million cases, be the veil of
powers which seem magical to us; powers which, so
far from proceeding from the heights and leading
men thither, are in reality survivals from the depths
of being. The amoeba and the snail have powers
which we do not possess; and I thought it possible
that the theory of reversion might explain many
things which seem wholly inexplicable. Thus stood
my position ; I saw good reason to believe that much
of the tradition, a vast deal of the earliest and un-
corrupted tradition of the so-called fairies, repre-
sented solid fact, and I thought that the purely
supernatural element in these traditions, was to be
accounted for on the hypothesis that a race which had
fallen out of the grand march of evolution might
have' retained, as a survival, certain powers which
would be to us wholly miraculous. Such was my
theory as it stood conceived in my mind; and work-

108 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

ing with this in view, I seemed to gather confirma-
tion from every side, from the spoils of a tumulus
or a barrow, from a local paper reporting an anti-
quarian meeting in the country, and from general
literature of all kinds. Amongst other instances,
I remember being struck by the phrase " articulate-
speaking men " in Homer, as if the writer knew or
had heard of men whose speech was so rude that
it could hardly be termed articulate; and on my
hypothesis of a race who had lagged far behind the
rest, I could easily conceive that such a folk would
speak a jargon but little removed from the inarticu-
late noises of brute-beasts.

Thus I stood, satisfied that my conjecture was at
all events not far removed from fact, when a chance
paragraph in a small country print one day arrested
my attention. It was a short account of what was
to all appearance the usual sordid tragedy of the
village; a young girl unaccountably missing, and
evil rumor blatant and busy with her reputation.
Yet I could read between the lines that all this
scandal was purely hypothetical, and in all proba-
bility invented to account for what was in any
other manner unaccountable. A flight to London
or Liverpool, or an undiscovered body lying with a
weight about its neck in the foul depths of a wood-
land pool, or* perhaps murder, — such were the theo-
ries of the wretched girl's neighbors. But as I idly
scanned the paragraph, a flash of thought passed
through me with the violence of an electric shock:
What if the obscure and horrible race of the hills
still survived, still remained haunting wild places,
and barren hills, and now and then repeating the

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 109

evil of Gothic legend, unchanged and unchangeable
as the Turanian Shelta, or the Basques of Spain.
I have said that the thought came with violence;
and indeed I drew in my breath sharply, and clung
with both hands to my elbow-chair, in a strange
confusion of horror and elation. It was as if one of
my confreres of physical science, roaming in a quiet
English wood, had been suddenly stricken aghast by
the presence of the slimy and loathsome terror of
the ichthyosaurus, the original of the stories of the
awful worms killed by valorous knights, or had seen
the sun darkened by the pterodactyl, the dragon of
tradition. Yet as a resolute explorer of knowledge,
the thought of such a discovery threw me into a
passion of joy, and I cut out the slip from the
paper, and put it in a drawer in my old bureau,
resolved that it should be but the first piece in a
collection of the strangest significance. I sat long
that evening dreaming of the conclusions I should
establish, nor did cooler reflection at first dash my
confidence. Yet as I began to put the case fairly,
I saw that I might be building on an unstable foun-
dation; the facts might possibly be in accordance
with local opinion ; and I regarded the affair with
a mood of some reserve. Yet I resolved to remain
perched on the look-out, and I hugged to myself
the thought that I alone was watching and wakeful,
while the great crowd of thinkers and searchers
stood heedless and indifferent, perhaps letting the
most prerogative facts pass by unnoticed.

Several years elapsed before I was enabled to add
to the contents of the drawer; and the second find
was in reality not a valuable one, for it was a mere

110 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

repetition of the first, with only the variation of
another and distant locality. Yet I gained some-
thing; for in the second case, as in the first, the
tragedy took place in a desolate and lonely country,
and so far my theory seemed justified. But the third
piece was to me far more decisive. Again, amongst
outland hills, far even from a main road of traffic, an
old man was found done to death, and the instru-
ment of execution was left beside him. Here, indeed,
there was rumor and conjecture, for the deadly
tool was a primitive stone axe, bound by gut to the
wooden handle, and surmises the most extravagant
and improbable were indulged in. Yet, as I thought
with a kind of glee, the wildest conjectures went
far astray; and I took the pains to enter into corre-
spondence with the local doctor, who was called at
the inquest. He, a man of some acuteness, was
dumfoundered. "It will not do to speak of these
things in country places," he wrote to me; "but,
frankly, Professor Gregg, there is some hideous
mystery here. I have obtained possession of the
stone axe, and have been so curious as to test its
powers. I took it into the back-garden of my
house one Sunday afternoon when my family and
the servants were all out, and there, sheltered by the
poplar hedges, I made my experiments. I found
the thing utterly unmanageable. Whether there
is some peculiar balance, some nice adjustment
of weights, which require incessant practice, or
whether an effectual blow can be struck only by a
certain trick of the muscles, I do not know ; but I
assure you that I went into the house with but a
sorry opinion of my athletic capacities. It was

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. Ill

like an inexperienced man trying 'putting the ham-
mer ; 7 the force exerted seemed to return on oneself,
and I found myself hurled backwards with violence,
while the axe fell harmless to the ground. On
another occasion I tried the experiment with a
clever woodman of the place; but this man, who
had handled his axe for forty years, could do noth-
ing with the stone implement, and missed every
stroke most ludicrously. In short, if it were not
so supremely absurd, I should say that for four
thousand years no one on earth could have struck an
effective blow with the tool that undoubtedly was
used to murder the old man." This, as may be
imagined, was to me rare news; and afterwards,
when I heard the whole story, and learned that the
unfortunate old man had babbled tales of what
might be seen at night on a certain wild hillside,
hinting at unheard-of wonders, and that he had
been found cold one morning on the very hill in
question, my exultation was extreme, for I felt I
was leaving conjecture far behind me. But the
next step was of still greater importance. I had
possessed for many years an extraordinary stone
seal, — a piece of dull black stone, two inches long
from the handle to the stamp, and the stamping
end a rough hexagon an inch and a quarter in
diameter. Altogether, it presented the appearance
of an enlarged tobacco-stopper of an old-fashioned
make. It had been sent to me by an agent in the
East, who informed me that it had been found near
the site of the ancient Babylon. But the charac-
ters engraved on the seal were to me an intolerable
puzzle. Somewhat of the cuneiform pattern, there

112 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

were yet striking differences, which I detected at
the first glance, and all efforts to read the inscrip-
tion on the hypothesis that the rules for decipher-
ing the arrow-headed writing would apply proved
futile. A riddle such as this stung my pride, and
at odd moments I would take the Black Seal out of
the cabinet, and scrutinize it with so much idle
perseverance that every letter was familiar to my
mind, and I could have drawn the inscription from
memory without the slightest error. Judge then
of my surprise, when I one day received from a cor-
respondent in the west of England a letter and an
enclosure that positively left me thunderstruck. I
saw carefully traced on a large piece of paper the
very characters of the Black Seal, without alteration
of any kind, and above the inscription my friend had
written: Inscription found on a limestone rock on
the Gray Hills, Monmouthshire. Done in some red
earth, and quite recent. I turned to the letter. My
friend wrote : " I send you the enclosed inscription
with all due reserve. A shepherd who passed by
the stone a week ago swears that there was then no
mark of any kind. The characters, as I have noted,
are formed by drawing some red earth over the
stone, and are of an average height of one inch.
They look to me like a kind of cuneiform character,
a good deal altered, but this of course is impossible.
It may be either a hoax or more probably some
scribble of the gypsies, who are plentiful enough in
this wild country. They have, as you are aware,
many hieroglyphics which they use in communi-
cating with one another. I happened to visit
the stone in question two days ago in connection

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 113

with a rather painful incident which has occurred
here."

As may be supposed, I wrote immediately to my
friend, thanking him for the copy of the inscrip-
tion, and asking him in a casual manner, the his-
tory of the incident he mentioned. To be brief, I
heard that a woman named Cradock, who had lost
her husband a day before, had set out to communi-
cate the sad news to a cousin who lived some five
miles away. She took a short cut which led by the
Gray Hills. Mrs. Cradock, who was then quite a
young woman, never arrived at her relative's house.
Late that night a farmer who had lost a couple of
sheep, supposed to have wandered from the flock,
was walking over the Gray Hills, with a lantern
and his dog. His attention was attracted by a noise,
which he described as a kind of wailing, mournful
and pitiable to hear; and, guided by the sound, he
found the unfortunate Mrs. Cradock crouched on
the ground by the limestone rock, swaying her
body to and fro, and lamenting and crying in so
heart-rending a manner that the farmer was, as he
says, at first obliged to stop his ears, or he would
have run away. The woman allowed herself to be
taken home, and a neighbor came to see to her
necessities. All the night she never ceased her
crying, mixing her lament with words of some
unintelligible jargon, and when the doctor arrived
he pronounced her insane. She lay on her bed for
a week, now wailing, as people said, like one lost
and damned for eternity, and now sunk in a heavy
coma; it was thought that grief at the loss of her
husband had unsettled her mind, and the medical

114 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

man did not at one time expect her to live. I need
not say that I was deeply interested in this story,
and I made my friend write to me at intervals with
all the particulars of the case. I heard then that
in the course of six weeks the woman gradually
recovered the use of her faculties and some months
later she gave birth to a son, christened Jervase,
who unhappily proved to be of weak intellect.
Such were the facts known to the village; but to
me while I whitened at the suggested thought of
the hideous enormities that had doubtless been
committed, all this was nothing short of conviction,
and I incautiously hazarded a hint of something like
the truth to some scientific friends. The moment
the words had left my lips I bitterly regretted hav-
ing spoken, and thus given away the great secret of
my life, but with a good deal of relief mixed with
indignation, I found my fears altogether misplaced,
for my friends ridiculed me to my face, and I was
regarded as a madman; and beneath a natural an-
ger I chuckled to myself, feeling as secure amidst
these blockheads, as if I had confided what I knew
to the desert sands.

But now, knowing so much, I resolved I would
know all, and I concentrated my efforts on the task
of deciphering the inscription on the Black Seal.
For many years I made this puzzle the sole object
of my leisure moments ; for the greater portion of
my time was, of course, devoted to other duties, and
it was only now and then that I could snatch a
week of clear research. If I were to tell the full
history of this curious investigation, this statement
would be wearisome in the extreme, for it would

ADVENTURE 'OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 115

contain simply the account of long and tedious
failure. By what I knew already of ancient scripts
I 'was well-equipped for the chase, as I always
termed it to myself. I had correspondents amongst
all the scientific men in Europe, and, indeed, in the
world, and I could not believe that in these days
any character, however ancient and however per-
plexed, could long resist the search-light I should
bring to bear upon it. Yet, in point of fact, it
was fully fourteen years before I succeeded. With
every year my professional duties increased, and my
leisure became smaller. This no doubt retarded me
a good deal; and yet, when I look back on those
years I am astonished at the vast scope of my inves-
tigation of the Black Seal. I made my bureau a
centre, and from all the world and from all the ages
I gathered transcripts of ancient writing. Nothing,
I resolved, should pass me unawares, and the faintest
hint should be welcomed and followed up. But as
one covert after another was tried and proved empty
of result, I began in the course of years to despair,
and to wonder whether the Black Seal were the sole
relic of some race that had vanished from the world
and left no other trace of its existence, — had perished,
in fine, as Atlantis is said to have done, in some
great cataclysm, its secrets perhaps drowned beneath
the ocean or moulded into the heart of the hills.
The thought chilled my warmth a little, and though
I still persevered, it was no longer with the same
certainty of faith. A chance came to the rescue.
I was staying in a considerable town in the north
of England, and took the opportunity of going over
the very creditable museum that had for some time

116 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

been established ' in the place. The curator was
one of my correspondents; and, as we were looking
through one of the mineral cases, my attention
was struck by a specimen, a piece of black stone
some four inches square, the appearance of which
reminded me in a measure of the Black Seal. I
took it up carelessly, and was turning it over in
my hand, when I saw, to my astonishment, that the
under side was inscribed. I said, quietly enough,
to my friend the curator that the specimen inter-
ested me, and that I should be much obliged if he
would allow me to take it with me to my hotel for
a couple of days. He, of course, made no objection,
and I hurried to my rooms, and found that my
first glance had not deceived me. There were two
inscriptions; one in the regular cuneiform charac-
ter, another in the character of the Black Seal, and
I realized that my task was accomplished. I made
an exact copy of the two inscriptions; and when I
got to my London study, and had the Seal before me,
I was able seriously to grapple with the great prob-
lem. The interpreting inscription on the museum
specimen, though in itself curious enough, did not
bear on my quest, but the transliteration made
me master of the secret of the Black Seal. Conjec-
ture, of course, had to enter into my calculations;
there was here and there uncertainty about a par-
ticular ideograph, and one sign recurring again and
again on the Seal baffled me for many successive
nights. But at last the secret stood open before me
in plain English, and I read the key of the awful
transmutation of the hills. The last word was
hardly written, when with fingers all trembling and

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 117

unsteady I tore the scrap of paper into the minutest
fragments, and saw them flame and blacken in the
red hollow of the fire, and then I crushed the gray
films that remained into finest powder. Never
since then have I written those words ; never will
I write the phrases which tell me how man can be
reduced to the slime from which he came, and be
forced to put on the flesh of the reptile and the
snake. There was now .but one thing remaining.
I knew; but I desired to see, and I was after some
time able to take a house in the neighborhood of
the Gray Hills, and not far from the cottage where
Mrs. Cradock and her son Jervase resided. I need
not go into a full and detailed account of the appar-
ently inexplicable events which have occurred here,
where I am writing this. I knew that I should find
in Jervase Cradock something of the blood of the
"Little People," and I found later that he had more
than once encountered his kinsmen in lonely places
in that lonely land. When I was summoned one
day to the garden, and found him in a seizure
speaking or hissing the ghastly jargon of the Black
Seal, I am afraid that exultation prevailed over
pity. I heard bursting from his lips the secrets of
the underworld, and the word of dread, " Ishakshar,"
the signification of which I must be excused from
giving.

But there is one incident I cannot pass over
unnoticed. In the waste hollow of the night I
awoke at the sound of those hissing syllables I
knew so well; and on going to the wretched boy's
room, I found him convulsed and foaming at the
mouth, struggling on the bed as if he strove to

118 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

escape the grasp of writhing demons. I took him
down to my room and lit the lamp, while he lay
twisting on the floor, calling on the power within
his flesh to leave him. I saw his body swell and
become distended as a bladder, while the face
blackened before my eyes ; and then at the crisis I
did what was necessary according to the directions
on the Seal, and putting all scruple on one side, I
became a man of science, observant of what was
passing. Yet the sight I had to witness was hor-
rible , almost beyond the power of human conception
and the most fearful fantasy; something pushed
out from the body there on the floor, and stretched
forth, a slimy wavering tentacle, across the room,
and grasped the bust upon the cupboard, and laid
it down on my desk.

When it was over, and I was left to walk up and
down all the rest of the night, white and shudder-
ing, with sweat pouring from my flesh, I vainly
tried to reason with myself; I said, truly enough,
that I had seen nothing really supernatural, that a
snail pushing out his horns and drawing them in
was but an instance on a smaller scale of what I
had witnessed; and yet horror broke through all
such reasonings and left me shattered and loath-
ing myself for the share I had taken in the night's
work.

There is little more to be said. I am going now
to the final trial and encounter; for I have deter-
mined that there shall be nothing wanting, and I
shall meet the " Little People " face to face. I
shall have the Black Seal and the knowledge of its
secrets to help me, and if I unhappily do not return

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 119

from my journey, there is no need to conjure up
here a picture of the awfulness of my fate.

Pausing a little at the end of Professor Gregg's
statement, Miss Lally contiuned her tale in the
following words : —

Such was the almost incredible story that the pro-
fessor had left behind him. When I had finished
reading it, it was late at night, but the next morning
1 took Morgan with me, and we proceeded to search
the Gray Hills for some trace of the lost professor.
I will not weary you with a description of the
savage desolation of that tract of country, a tract of
utterest loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over
with gray limestone boulders, worn by the ravage
of time into fantastic semblances of men and beasts.
Finally, after many hours of weary searching, we
found what I told you — the watch and chain, the
purse, and the ring — wrapped in a piece of coarse
parchment. When Morgan cut the gut that bound
the parcel together, and I saw the professor's prop-
erty, I burst into tears, but the sight of the dreaded
characters of the Black Seal repeated on the parch-
ment froze me to silent horror, and I think I under-
stood for the first time the awful fate that had
come upon my late employer.

I have only to add that Professor Gregg's lawyer
treated my account of what had happened as a fairy
tale, and refused even to glance at the documents I
laid before him. It was he who was responsible for.
the statement that appeared in the public press, to
the effect that Professor Gregg had been drowned,
and that his body must have been swept into the
open sea.

120 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

Miss Lally stopped speaking and looked at Mr.
Phillipps, with a glance of some enquiry. He, for
his part, was sunken in a deep revery of thought;
and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the
evening gathering in the square, men and women
hurrying to partake of dinner, and crowds already
besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press
of actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream
in the morning after an awakening.

"I thank you," he said at last, "for your most
interesting story; interesting to me, because I feel
fully convinced of its exact truth."

"Sir," said the lady, with some energy of indig-
nation, "you grieve and offend me. Do you think
I should waste my time and yours by concocting
fictions on a bench in Leicester Square?"

"Pardon me, Miss Lally, you have a little mis-
understood me. Before you began I knew that
whatever you told would be told in good faith, but
your experiences have a far higher value than that
of bona fides. The most extraordinary circum-
stances in your account are in perfect harmony with
the very latest scientific theories. Professor Lodge
would, I am sure, value a communciation from you
extremely; I was charmed from the first by his
daring hypothesis in explanation of the wonders of
Spiritualism (so called), but your narrative puts the
whole matter out of the range of mere hypothesis."

"Alas, sir, all this will not help me. You for-
get, I have lost my brother under the most start-
ling and dreadful circumstances. Again, I ask you,
did you not see him as you came here? His black
whiskers, his spectacles, his timid glance to right

ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER. 121

and left; think, do not these particulars recall his
face to your memory?"

"I am sorry to say I have never seen any one of
the kind," said Phillipps, who had forgotten all
about the missing brother. "But let me ask you
a few questions. Did you notice whether Professor
Gregg — "

"Pardon me, sir, I have stayed too long. My
employers will be expecting me. I thank you for
your sympathy. Good-bye."

Before Mr. Phillipps had recovered from his
amazement at this abrupt departure, Miss Lally
had disappeared from his gaze, passing into the
crowd that now thronged the approaches to the
Empire. He walked home in a pensive frame of
mind, and drank too much tea. At ten o'clock he
had made his third brew, and had sketched out the
outlines of a little work to be called Protoplasmic
Reversion.

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE
BAR.

MR. DYSON often meditated at odd moments over
the singular tale he had listened to at the Cafe de
la Touraine. In the first place he cherished a pro-
found conviction that the words of truth were
scattered with a too niggardly and sparing hand
over the agreeable history of Mr. Smith and the
Black Gulf Canon; and, secondly, there was the
undeniable fact of the profound agitation of the nar-
rator, and his gestures on the pavement, too violent
to be simulated. The' idea of a man going about
London haunted by the fear of meeting a young
man with spectacles struck Dyson as supremely
ridiculous ; he searched his memory for some prece-
dent in romance, but without success ; he paid visits
at odd times to the little cafe, hoping to find Mr.
Wilkins there ; and he kept a sharp watch on the
great generation of the spectacled men without much
doubt that he would remember the face of the indi-
vidual whom he had seen dart out of the Aerated
Bread Shop. All his peregrinations and researches,
however, seemed to lead to nothing of value, and
Dyson needed all his warm conviction of his innate
detective powers and his strong scent for mystery
to sustain him in his endeavors. In fact, he had

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR. 123

two affairs on hand; and every day, as he passed
through streets crowded or deserted, and lurked in
the obscure districts, and watched at corners, he was
more than surprised to find that the affair of the
gold coin persistently avoided him ; while the inge-
nious Wilkins, and the young man with spectacles
whom he dreaded, seemed to have vanished from
the pavements.

He was pondering these problems one evening in
a house of call in the Strand, and the obstinacy with
which the persons he so ardently desired to meet
hung back gave the modest tankard before him an
additional touch of bitter. As it happened, he was
alone in his compartment, and, without thinking,
he uttered aloud the burden of his meditations.
"How bizarre it all is!" he said, "a man walking
the pavement with the dread of a timid-looking
young man with spectacles continually hovering
before his eyes. And there was some tremendous
feeling at work, I could swear to that." Quick as
thought, before he had finished the sentence, a
head popped round the barrier, and was withdrawn
again; and while Dyson was wondering what this
could mean, the door of the compartment was swung
open, and a smooth, clean-shaven, arid smiling
gentleman entered.

"You will excuse me, sir," he said politely, "for
intruding on your thoughts, but you made a remark
a minute ago."

"I did," said Dyson; "I have been puzzling
over a foolish matter, and I thought aloud. As
you heard what I said, and seem interested, perhaps
you may be able to relieve my perplexity?"

124 THE THEEE IMPOSTOKS.

"Indeed, I scarcely know; it is an odd coinci"
dence. One has to be cautious. I suppose, sir, that
you would have no repulsion in assisting the ends
of justice."

"Justice," replied Dyson, "is a term of such wide
meaning, that I too feel doubtful about giving an
answer. But tnis place is not altogether fit for
such a discussion; perhaps you would come to my
rooms?"

"You are very kind; my name is Burton, but I
am sorry to say I have not a card with me. Do you
live near here?"

"Within ten minutes' walk."

Mr. Burton took out his watch and seemed to be
making a rapid calculation.

" I have a train to catch ," he said ; " but after all,
it is a late one. So, if you don't mind, I think I will
come with you. I am sure we should have a little
talk together. We turn up here?"

The theatres were filling as they crossed the
Strand, the street seemed alive with voices, and
Dyson looked fondly about him. The glittering
lines of gas-lamps, with here and there the blind-
ing radiance of an electric light, the hansoms that
flashed to and fro with ringing bells, the laden
buses, and the eager hurrying east and west of the
foot passengers, made his most enchanting picture;
and the graceful spire of St. Mary le Strand,
on the one hand, and the last flush of sunset on
the other, were to him a cause of thanksgiving,
as the gorse blossom to Linnaeus. Mr. Burton
caught his look of fondness as they crossed the
street.

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAK. 125

"I see you can find the picturesque in London,"
he said. " To me this great town is as I see it is to
you, the study and the love of life. Yet how few
there are that can pierce the veils of apparent
monotony and meanness! I have read in a paper
which is said to have the largest circulation in the
world, a comparison between the aspects of London
and Paris, a comparison which should be positively
laureat, as the great masterpiece of fatuous stupidity.
Conceive if you can a human being of ordinary in-
telligence preferring the Boulevards to our London
streets; imagine a man calling for the wholesale
destruction of our most charming city, in order that
the dull uniformity of that whited sepulchre called
Paris should be reproduced here in London. Is it
not positively incredible?"

"My dear sir," said Dyson, regarding Burton
with a good deal of interest. " I agree most heartily
with your opinions, but I really cannot share your
wonder. Have you heard how much George Eliot
received for 'Komola'? Do you know what the
circulation of 'Robert Elsmere ' was? Do you read
'Tit Bits ' regularly? To me, on the contrary, it is
constant matter both for wonder and thanksgiving
that London was not boulevardized twenty years
ago. I praise that exquisite jagged sky line that
stands up against the pale greens and fading blues
and flushing clouds of sunset, but I wonder even
more than I praise. As for St. Mary le Strand, its
preservation is a miracle, nothing more or less. A
thing of exquisite beauty versus four buses abreast !
Keally, the conclusion is too obvious. Did n't you
read the letter of the man who proposed that the

126 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

whole mysterious system, the immemorial plan of
computing Easter, should be abolished off-hand be-
cause he does n;t like his son having his holidays as
early as March 25th? But shall we be going on?"

They had lingered at the corner of a street on the
north side of the Strand, enjoying the contrasts
and the glamour of the scene. Dyson pointed the
way with a gesture, and they strolled up the com-
paratively deserted streets, slanting a little to the
right, and thus arriving at Dyson's lodging on the
verge of Bloomsbury. Mr. Burton took a comfort-
able armchair by the open window, while Dyson lit
the candles and produced the whiskey and soda and
cigarettes.

"They tell me these cigarettes are very good," he
said, "but I know nothing about it myself. I hold
at last that there is only one tobacco, and that is shag.
I suppose I could not tempt you to try a pipeful?"

Mr. Burton smilingly refused the offer, and picked
out a cigarette from the box. When he had smoked
it half through, he said with some hesitation: —

"It is really kind of you to have me here, Mr.
Dyson; the fact is that the interests at issue are
far too serious to be discussed in a bar, where,
as you found for yourself, there may be listeners,
voluntary or involuntary, on each side. I think
the remark I heard you make was something about
the oddity of an individual going about London in
deadly fear of a young man with spectacles."

"Yes, that was it."

"Well, would you mind confiding to me the cir-
cumstances that gave rise to the reflection? "

"Not in the least; it was like this." And he ran

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR. 127

over in brief outline the adventure in Oxford Street,
dwelling on the violence of Mr. Wilkins's gestures,
but wholly suppressing the tale told in the cafe.
" He told me he lived in constant terror of meeting
this man; and I left him when I thought he was
cool enough to look after himself," said Dyson,
ending his narrative.

"Really," said Mr. Burton. "And you actually
saw this mysterious person? "

"Yes."

"And could you describe him?"

"Well, he looked to me a youngish man, pale and
nervous. He had small black side whiskers, and
wore rather large spectacles."

"But this is simply marvellous! You astonish
me. For I must tell you that my interest in the
matter is this. I am not in the least in terror of
meeting a dark young man with spectacles, but I
shrewdly suspect a person of that description would
much rather not meet me. And yet the account
you give of the man tallies exactly. A nervous
glance to right and left — is it not so? And, as you
observed, he wears prominent spectacles, and has
small black whiskers. There cannot be surely two
people exactly identical — one a cause of terror, and
the other, I should imagine, extremely anxious to
get out of the way. But have you seen this man
since?"

" No, I have not ; and I have been looking out for
him pretty keenly. But, of course, he may have left
London, and England too for the matter of that."

"Hardly, I think. Well, Mr. Dyson, it is only
fair that I should explain my story, now that I

128 « THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

have listened to yours. I must tell you, then, that
I am an agent for curiosities and precious things of
all kinds. An odd employment, is n't it? Of course
I was n't brought up to the business ; I gradually
fell into it. I have always been fond of things
queer and rare, and by the time I was twenty I had
made half a dozen collections. It is not generally
known how often farm laborers come upon rari-
ties ; you would be astonished if I told you what I
have seen turned up by the plough. I lived in the
country in those days, and I used to buy anything
the men on the farms brought me; and I had the
queerest set of rubbish, as my friends called my
collection. But that 's how I got the scent of the
business, which means everything; and, later on, it
struck me that I might very well turn my knowledge
to account and add to my income. Since those
early days I have been in most quarters of the
world, and some very valuable things have passed
through my hands, and I have had to engage in diffi-
cult and delicate negotiations. You have possibly
heard of the Khan opal — called in the East ' The
Stone of a Thousand and One Colors ' ? Well, perhaps
the conquest of that stone was my greatest achieve-
ment. I call it myself the stone of the thousand
and one lies, for I assure you that I had to invent
a cycle of folk-lore before the Kajah who owned it
would consent to sell the thing. I subsidized wan-
dering story-tellers, who told tales in which the opal
played a frightful part ; I hired a holy man, a great
ascetic, to prophesy against the thing in the lan-
guage of Eastern symbolism; in short, I frightened
the Rajah out of his wits. So you see there is

INCIDENT OF THE PEIVATE BAR. 129

room for diplomacy in the traffic I am engaged in-
I have to be ever on my guard, and I have often
been sensible that unless I watched every step and
weighed every word my life would not last me
much longer. Last April I became aware of the
existence of a highly valuable antique gem. It was
in Southern Italy, and in the possession of persons
who were ignorant of its real value. It has always
been my experience that it is precisely the ignorant
who are most difficult to deal with. I have' met
farmers who were under the impression that a shil-
ling of George I. was a find of almost incalculable
value; and all the defeats I have sustained have
been at the hands of people of this description.
Beflecting on these facts, I saw that the acquisition
of the gem I have mentioned would be an affair
demanding the nicest diplomacy; I might possibly
have got it by offering a sum approaching its real
value, but I need not point out to you that such a '
proceeding would be most unbusinesslike. Indeed,
I doubt whether it would have been successful, for
the cupidity of such persons is aroused by a sum
which seems enormous, and the low cunning which
serves them in place of intelligence immediately
suggests that the object for which such an amount
is offered must be worth at least double. Of course,
when it is a matter of an ordinary curiosity — an old
jug, a carved chest, or a queer brass lantern — one
does not much care; the cupidity of the owner
defeats its object, the collector laughs, and goes
away, for he is aware that such things are by no
means unique. But this gem I fervently desired
to possess; and as I did not see my way to giving

9

130 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

more than a hundredth part of its value, I was
conscious that all my, let us say, imaginative arid
diplomatic powers would have to be exerted. I am
sorry to say that I came to the conclusion that I
could not undertake to carry the matter through
single-handed, and I determined to confide in my
assistant, a young man named William Bobbins,
whom I judged to be by no means devoid of capacity.
My idea was that Bobbins should get himself up
as a low-class dealer in precious stones; he could
patter a little Italian, and would go to the town
in question and manage to see the gem we were
after, possibly by offering some trifling articles of
jewelry for sale, but that I left to be decided. Then
my work was to begin, but I will not trouble you
with a tale told twice over. In due course, then,
Bobbins went off to Italy with an assortment of
uncut stones and a few rings, and some jewelry I
bought in Birmingham, on purpose for his expedi-
tion. A week later I followed him, travelling
leisurely, so that I was a fortnight later in arriving
at our common' destination. There was a decent
hotel in the town, and on my inquiring of the land-
lord whether there were many strangers in the
place, he told me very few ; he had heard there was
an Englishman staying in a small tavern, a pedlar
he said, who sold beautiful trinkets very cheaply,
and wanted to buy old rubbish. For five or six
days I took life leisurely, and I must say I enjoyed
myself. It was part of my plan to make the people
think I was an enormously rich man; and I knew
that such items as the extravagance of my meals,
and the price of every bottle of wine I drank, would

INCIDENT OF THE PKIVATE BAR. 131

not be suffered, as Sancho Panza puts it, to rot in
the landlord's breast. At the end of the week I
was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of
Signor Melini, the owner of the gem I coveted, at
the cafe, and with his ready hospitality and my
geniality I was soon established as a friend of the
house. On my third or fourth visit I managed to
make the Italians talk about the English pedlar,
who, they said, spoke a most detestable Italian.
'But that does not matter,' said the Signora Melini,
'for he has beautiful things, which he sells very
very cheap.' 'I hope you may not find he has
cheated you,' I said, 'for I must tell you that
English people give these fellows a very wide berth.
They usually make a great parade of the cheapness
of their goods, which often turn out to be double
the price of better articles in the shops.' They
would not hear of this, and Signora Melini insisted
on showing me the three rings and the bracelet she
had bought of the pedlar. She told me the price
she had paid; and after scrutinizing the articles
carefully, I had to confess that she had made a bar-
gain, and indeed Bobbins had sold her the things at
about fifty per cent below market value. I admired
the trinkets as I gave them back to the lady, and I
hinted that the pedlar must be a somewhat foolish
specimen of his class. Two days later, as I was
taking my vermouth at the cafe with Signor Melini,
he led the conversation back to the pedlar, and men-
tioned casually that he had shown the man a little
curiosity, for which he had made rather a handsome
offer. 'My dear sir,' I said, 'I hope you will be
careful. I told you that the travelling tradesman

132 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

does not bear a very high reputation in England;
and notwithstanding his apparent simplicity, this
fellow may turn out to be an arrant cheat. May I
ask you what is the nature of the curiosity you have
shown him? ' He told me it was a little thing, a
pretty little stone with some figures cut on it : peo-
ple said it was old. 'I should like to examine
it,' I replied; 'as it happens I have seen a good
deal of these gems. We have a fine collection of
them in our museum at London. ' In due course I
was shown the article, and I held the gem I so
coveted between my fingers. I looked at it coolly,
and put it down carelessly on the table. 'Would
you mind telling me, signer,7 I said, 'how much my
fellow-countryman offered you for this?7 'Well,7
he said, 'my wife says the man must be mad; he
said he would give me twenty lire for it.7

" I looked at him quietly, and took up the gem and
pretended to examine it in the light more carefully ;
I turned it over and over, and finally pulled out a
magnifying glass from my pocket, and seemed to
search every line in the cutting with minutest
scrutiny. 'My dear sir,7 I said at last, 'I am
inclined to agree with Signora Melini. If this gem
were genuine, it would be worth some money; but
as it happens to be a rather bad forgery, it is not
worth twenty centesimi. It was sophisticated, I
should imagine, some time in the last century, and
by a very unskilful hand.7 'Then we had better
get rid of it,7 said Melini. 'I never thought it
was worth anything myself. Of course I am sorry
for the pedlar, but one must let a man know his own
trade. I shall tell him we will take the twenty

INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR. 133

lire.' ' Excuse me,7 I said, 'the man wants a
lesson. It would be a charity to give him one.
Tell him that you will not take anything under
eighty lire, and I shall be much surprised if he does
not close with you at once.'

" A day or two later I heard that the English ped-
lar had gone away, after debasing the minds of the
country people with Birmingham art jewelry; for I
admit that the gold sleeve links like kidney beans,
the silver chains made apparently after the pattern
of a dog-chain, and the initial brooches, have always
been heavy on my conscience, I cannot acquit my-
self of having indirectly contributed to debauch the
taste of a simple folk ; but I hope that the end I
had in view may finally outbalance this heavy
charge. Soon afterwards, I paid a farewell visit at
the Melinis, and the signer informed me with an
oily chuckle that the plan I had suggested had been
completely successful. I congratulated him on his
bargain, and went away after expressing a wish
that heaven might send many such pedlars in his
path.

"Nothing of interest occurred on my return jour-
ney. I had arranged that Bobbins was to meet me
at a certain place on a certain day, and I went to
the appointment full of the coolest confidence; the
gem had been conquered, and I had only to reap the
fruits of victory. I am sorry to shake that trust in
our common human nature which I am sure you
possess, but I am compelled to tell you that up to
the present date I have never set eyes on my man
Bobbins, or on the antique gem in his custody. I
have found out that he actually arrived in London,

134 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

for he was seen three days before my arrival in
England by a pawnbroker of my acquaintance con-
suming his favorite beverage, four ale, in the tavern
where we met to-night. Since then he has not
been heard of. I hope you will now pardon my
curiosity as to the history and adventures of dark
young men with spectacles. You will, I am sure,
feel for me in my position; the savor of life has
disappeared for me; it is a bitter thought that I
have rescued one of the most perfect and exquisite
specimens of antique art from the hands of ignorant,
and indeed unscrupulous persons, only to deliver it
into the keeping of a man who is evidently utterly
devoid of the very elements of commercial morality."

"My dear sir," said Dyson, "you will allow me
to compliment you on your style ; your adventures
have interested me exceedingly. But, forgive me,
you just now used the word morality; would not
some persons take exception to your own methods
of business? I can conceive, myself, flaws of a
moral kind, being found in the very original concep-
tion you have described to me. I can imagine the
Puritan shrinking in dismay from your scheme,
pronouncing it unscrupulous, nay, dishonest."

Mr. Burton helped himself, very frankly, to some
more whiskey.

"Your scruples entertain me," he said. "Perhaps
you have not gone very deeply into these questions
of ethics. I have been compelled to do so myself,
just as I was forced to master a simple system of
book-keeping. Without book-keeping, and still
more without a system of ethics, it is impossible
to conduct a business such as mine. But I assure

INCIDENT OF THE PKIVATE BAK. 135

you that I am often profoundly saddened as I pass
through the crowded streets and watch the world at
work by the thought of how few amongst all these
hurrying individuals, black-hatted, well dressed,
educated we may presume sufficiently, — how few
amongst them have any reasoned system of moral-
ity. Even you have not weighed the question;
although you study life and affairs, and to a cer-
tain extent penetrate the veils and masks of the j
comedy of man, even you judge by empty conven-
tions, and the false money which is allowed to pass
current as sterling coin. Allow me to play the part
of Socrates; I shall teach you nothing that you do
not know. I shall merely lay aside the wrappings
of prejudice and bad logic, and show you the real
image which you possess in your soul. Come then.
Do you allow that happiness is anything?"

"Certainly," said Dyson.

"And happiness is desirable or undesirable?"

"Desirable of course."

"And what shall we call the man who gives hap-
piness? Is he not a philanthropist?"

"I think so."

"And such a person is praiseworthy, and the
more praiseworthy in the proportion of the persons
whom he makes happy?"

"By all means."

"So that he who makes a whole nation happy, is
praiseworthy in the extreme, and the action by
which he gives happiness is the highest virtue?"

"It appears so, 0 Burton," said Dyson, who found
something very exquisite in the character of his
visitor.

136 THE THKEE IMPOSTOKS.

"Quite so; you find the several conclusions inev-
itable. Well, apply them to the story I have told
you. I conferred happiness on myself by obtaining
(as I thought) possession of the gem; I conferred
happiness on the Melinis by getting them eighty
lire instead of an object for which they had not the
slightest value, and I intended to confer happiness
on the whole British nation by selling the thing to
the British Museum, to say nothing of the happi-
ness a profit of about nine thousand per cent would
have conferred on me. I assure you I regard Rob-
bins as an interfere!1 with the cosmos and fair order
of things. But that is nothing; you perceive that
I am an apostle of the very highest morality ; you
have been forced to yield to argument.7'

" There certainly seems a great deal in what you
advance," said Dyson. "I admit that I am a mere
amateur of ethics, while you, as you say, have
brought the most acute scrutiny to bear on these
perplexed and doubtful questions. I can well under-
stand your anxiety to meet the fallacious Bobbins,
and I congratulate myself on the chance which has
made us acquainted. But you will pardon my
seeming inhospitality; I see it is half past eleven,
and I think you mentioned a train."

"A thousand thanks, Mr. Dyson, I have just
time, I see. I will look you up some evening if I
may. Good-night."

THE DECOKATIVE IMAGINATION.

IN the course of a few weeks Dyson became accus-
tomed to the constant incursions of the ingenious
Mr. Burton, who showed himself ready to drop in
at all hours, not averse to refreshment, and a pro-
found guide in the complicated questions of life.
His visits at once terrified and delighted Dyson,
who could no longer seat himself at his bureau
secure from interruption while he embarked on
literary undertakings, each one of which was to be
a masterpiece. On the other hand, it was a vivid
pleasure to be confronted with views so highly
original; and if here a,nd there Mr. Burton's reason-
ings seemed tinged with fallacy, yet Dyson freely
yielded to the joy of strangeness, and never failed
to give his visitor a frank and hearty welcome.
Mr. Burton's first inquiry was always after the
unprincipled Robbins, and he seemed to feel the
stings of disappointment when Dyson told him that
he had failed to meet this outrage on all morality,
as Burton styled him, vowing that sooner or later he
would take vengeance on such a shameless betrayal
of trust.

One evening they had sat together for some time
discussing the possibility of laying down for this
present generation and our modern and intensely

138 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

complicated order of society, some rules of social
diplomacy, such as Lord Bacon gave to the courtiers
of King James I. "It is a book to make," said Mr.
Burton, "but who is there capable of making it? I
tell you people are longing for such a book ; it would
bring fortune to its publisher. Bacon's Essays
are exquisite, but they have now no practical appli-
cation ; the modern strategist can find but little use
in a treatise ' De Re Militari,' written by a "Floren-
tine in the fifteenth century. Scarcely more dis-
similar are the social conditions of Bacon's time and
our own; the rules that he lays down so exquisitely
for the courtier and diplomatist of James the First's
age will avail us little in the rough-and-tumble strug-
gle of to-day. Life, I am afraid, has deteriorated ;
it gives little play for fine strokes such as formerly
advanced men in the state. Except in such busi-
nesses as mine, where a chance does occur now and
then, it has all become, as I said, an affair of rough
and tumble; men still desire to attain, it is true,
but what is their moyen de parvenir ? A mere imi-
tation, and not a gracious one, of the arts of the
soap-vender and the proprietor of baking powder.
When I think of these things, my dear Dyson, I
confess that I am tempted to despair of my
century."

"You are too pessimistic, my dear fellow; you
set up too high a standard. Certainly, I agree with
you that the times are decadent in many ways. I
admit a general appearance of squalor; it needs
much philosophy to extract the wonderful and the
beautiful from the Cromwell Road or the Noncon-
formist conscience. Australian wines of fine Bur-

THE DECOKATIVE IMAGINATION. 139

gundy character, the novels alike of the old women
and the new women, popular journalism, — these
things indeed make for depression. Yet we have
our advantages. Before us is unfolded the greatest
spectacle the world has ever seen, — the mystery of
the innumerable unending streets, the strange adven-
tures that must infallibly arise from so complicated
a press of interests. Nay, I will say that he who
has stood in the ways of a suburb and has seen
them stretch before him all shining, void, and
desolate at noonday, has not lived in vain. Such
a sight is in reality more wonderful than any per-
spective of Bagdad or Grand Cairo. And, to set on
one side the entertaining history of the gem which
you told me, surely you must have had many singular
adventures in your own career? "

" Perhaps not so many as you would think ; a good
deal — the larger part — of my business has been as
commonplace as linen-drapery. But of course things
happen now and then. It is ten years since I have
established my agency, and I suppose that a house
and estate agent who had been in trade for an equal
time could tell you some queer stories. But I must
give you a sample of my experiences some night."

"Why not to-night?" said Dyson. "This even-
ing seems to me admirably adapted for an odd
chapter. Look out into the street; you can catch
a view of it, if you crane your neck from that chair
of yours. Is it not charming? The double row of
lamps growing closer in the distance, the hazy out-
line of the plane-tree in the square, and the lights
of the hansoms swimming to and fro, gliding and
vanishing; and above, the sky all clear and blue

140 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

and sliming. Come, let us have one of your cent

nouvelles nouvelles."

"My dear Dyson, I am delighted to amuse you."
With these words Mr. Burton prefaced the

NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID.

I think the most extraordinary event which I can
recall took place about five years ago. I was then still
feeling my way; I had declared for business, and
attended regularly at my office, but I had not suc-
ceeded in establishing a really profitable connection,
and consequently I had a good deal of leisure time
on my hands. I have never thought fit to trouble
you with the details of my private life ; they would
be entirely devoid of interest. I must briefly say,
however, that I had a numerous circle of acquaint-
ance, and was never at a loss as to how to spend
my evenings. I was so fortunate as to have friends
in most of the ranks of the social order; there is
nothing so unfortunate, to my mind, as a specialized
circle, wherein a certain round of ideas is con-
tinually traversed and retraversed. I have always
tried to find out new types and persons whose
brains contained something fresh to me; one may
chance to gain information even from the conver-
sation of city men on an omnibus. Amongst my
acquaintance I knew a young doctor who lived in
a far outlying suburb, and I used often to brave
the intolerably slow railway journey, to have the
pleasure of listening to his talk. One night we
conversed so eagerly together over our pipes and

THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION. 141

whiskey that the clock passed unnoticed, and when
I glanced up I realized with a shock that I had just
five minutes in which to catch the last train. I
made a dash for my hat and stick, and jumped out
of the house and down the steps, and tore at full
speed up the street. It was no good, however; there
was a shriek of the engine whistle, and I stood
there at the station door and saw far on the long
dark line of the embankment a red light shine and
vanish, and a porter came down and shut the door
with a bang.

"How far to London? " I asked him.

"A good nine miles to Waterloo Bridge;" and
with that he went off.

Before me was the long suburban street, its dreary
distance marked by rows of twinkling lamps, and
the air was poisoned by the faint sickly smell of
burning bricks; it was not a cheerful prospect by
any means,' and I had to walk through nine miles
of such streets, deserted as those of Pompeii. I
knew pretty well what direction to take; so I set
out wearily, looking at the stretch of lamps vanish-
ing in perspective; and as I walked, street after
street branched off to right and left, — some far
reaching to distances that seemed endless, communi-
cating with other systems of thoroughfare ; and some
mere protoplasmic streets, beginning in orderly
fashion with serried two-storied houses, and end-
ing suddenly in waste, and pits, and rubbish heaps,
and fields whence the magic had departed. I
have spoken of systems of thoroughfare, and I
assure you that, walking alone through these silent
places, I felt phantasy growing on me, and some

142 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

glamour of the infinite. There was here, I felt, an
immensity as in the outer void of the universe. I
passed from unknown to unknown, my way marked
by lamps like stars, and on either hand was an
unknown world where myriads of men dwelt and
slept, street leading into street, as it seemed to
world's end. At first the road by which I was
travelling was lined with houses of unutterable
monotony, — a wall of gray brick pierced by two
stories of windows , drawn close to the very pave-
ment. But by degrees I noticed an improvement:
there were gardens, and these grew larger. The
suburban builder began to allow himself a wider
scope ; and for a certain distance each flight of steps
was guarded by twin lions of plaster, and scents of
flowers prevailed over the fume of heated bricks.
The road began to climb a hill, and, looking up a
side street, I saw the half moon rise over plane-
trees, and there on the other side was as if a white
cloud had fallen, and the air around it was sweet-
ened as with incense; it was a may-tree in full
bloom. I pressed on stubbornly, listening for the
wheels and the clatter of some belated hansom; but
into that land of men who go to the city in the morn-
ing and return in the evening, the hansom rarely
enters, and I had resigned myself once more to the
walk, when I suddenly became aware that some one
was advancing, to meet me along the sidewalk. The
man was strolling rather aimlessly; and though the
time and the place would have allowed an unconven-
tional style of dress, he was vested in the ordinary
frock coat , black tie, and silk hat of civilization. We
met each other under the lamp, and, as often happens

THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION. 143

in this great town, two casual passengers brought
face to face found each in the other an acquaintance.

"Mr. Mathias, I think?" I said.

"Quite so. And you are Frank Burton. You
know you are a man with a Christian name, so I
won't apologize for my familiarity. But may I ask
where you are going? "

I explained the situation to him, saying I had
traversed a region as unknown to me as the darkest
recesses of Africa. " I think I have only about five
miles farther," I concluded.

"Nonsense; you must come home with me. My
house is close by; in fact, I was just taking my
evening walk when we met. Come along; I dare
say you will find a makeshift bed easier than a five-
mile walk."

I let him take my arm and lead me along, though
I was a good deal surprised at so much geniality
from a man who was, after all, a mere casual club
acquaintance. I suppose I had not spoken to Mr.
Mathias half-a-dozen times; he was a man who
would. sit silent in an armchair for hours, neither
reading nor smoking, but now and again moistening
his lips with his tongue and smiling queerly to
himself. I confess he had never attracted me, and
on the whole I should have preferred to continue
my walk. But he took my arm and led me up a
side street, and stopped at a door in a high wall.
We passed through the still moonlit garden, beneath
the black shadow of an old cedar, and into an old
red brick house with many gables. I was tired
enough, and I sighed with relief as I let myself
fall into a great leather armchair. You know the

144 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

infernal grit with which they strew the sidewalk
in those suburban districts; it makes walking a
penance, and I felt my four-mile tramp had made
me more weary than ten miles on an honest country
road. I looked about the room with some curiosity.
There was a shaded lamp which threw a circle of
brilliant light on a heap of papers lying on an old
brass-bound secretaire of the last century; but the
room was all vague and shadowy, and I could only
see that it was long and low, and that it was filled
with indistinct objects which might be furniture.
Mr. Mathias sat down in a second armchair, and
looked about him with that odd smile of his. He
was a queer-looking man, clean-shaven, and white
to the lips. I should think his age was something
between fifty and sixty.

"Now I have got you here," he began, "I must
inflict my hobby on you. You knew I was a col-
lector? Oh, yes, I have devoted many years to col-
lecting curiosities, which I think are really curious.
But we must have a better light."

He advanced into the middle of the room, and lit
a lamp which hung from the ceiling; and as the
bright light flashed round the wick, from every
corner and space there seemed to start a horror.
Great wooden frames with complicated apparatus
of ropes and pulleys stood against the wall ; a wheel
of strange shape had a place beside a thing that
looked like a gigantic gridiron. Little tables glit-
tered with bright steel instruments carelessly put
down as if ready for use ; a screw and vice loomed
out, casting ugly shadows ; and in another nook was
a saw with cruel jagged teeth.

THE DECOEATIVE IMAGINATION. 145

"Yes," said Mr. Mathias; "they are, as you sug-
gest, instruments of torture, — of torture and death.
Some — many, I may say — have been used; a few
are reproductions after ancient examples. Those
knives were used for flaying; that frame is a rack,
and a very fine specimen. Look at this; it comes
from Venice. You see that sort of collar, some-
thing like a big horse-shoe? Well, the patient, let
us call him, sat down quite comfortably, and the
horse-shoe was neatly fitted round his neck. Then
the two ends were joined with a silken band, and
the executioner began to turn a handle connected
with the band. The horse-shoe contracted very
gradually as the band tightened, and the turning
'continued till the man was strangled. It all took
place quietly, in one of those queer garrets under
the Leads. But these things are all European ; the
Orientals are, of course, much more ingenious.
These are the Chinese contrivances. You have
heard of the 'heavy death'? It is my hobby, this
sort of thing. Do you know, I often sit here , hour
after hour, and meditate over the collection. I
fancy I see the faces of the men who have suffered —
faces lean with agony and wet with sweats of death —
growing distinct out of the gloom, and I hear the
echoes of their cries for mercy. But I must show
you my latest acquisition. Come into the next
room."

I followed Mr. Mathias out. The weariness of
the walk, the late hour, and the strangeness of it
all, made me feel like a man in a dream; nothing
would have surprised me very much. The second
room was as the first, crowded with ghastly instru-

10

146 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

ments; but beneath the lamp was a wooden plat-
form, and a figure stood on it. It was a large statue
of a naked woman, fashioned in green bronze; the
arms were stretched out, and there was a smile on
the lips; it might well have been intended for a
Venus, and yet there was about the thing an evil
and a deadly look.

Mr. Mathias looked at it complacently. "Quite
a work of art, isn't it?" he said. "It 's made of
bronze, as you see, but it has long had the name of
the Iron Maid. I got it from Germany, and it was
only unpacked this afternoon; indeed, I have not
yet had time to open the letter of advice. You see
that very small knob between the breasts? Well,
the victim was bound to the Maid, the knob was
pressed, and the arms slowly tightened round the
neck. You can imagine the result."

As Mr. Mathias talked, he patted the figure
affectionately. I had turned away, for I sickened
at the sight of the man and his loathsome treasure.
There was a slight click, of which I took no
notice, — it was not much louder than the tick of a
clock; and then I heard a sudden whir, the noise of
machinery in motion, and I faced round. I have
never forgotten the hideous agony on Mathias's face
as those relentless arms tightened about his neck;
there was a wild struggle as of a beast in the toils,
and then a shriek that ended in a choking groan.
The whirring noise had suddenly changed into a
heavy droning. I tore with all my might at the
bronze arms, and strove to wrench them apart, but I
could do nothing. The head had slowly bent down,
and the green lips were on the lips of Mathias.

THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION. 147

Of course I had to attend at the inquest. The
letter which had accompanied the figure was found
unopened on the study table. The German firm of
dealers cautioned their client to be most careful in
touching the Iron Maid, as the machinery had been
put in thorough working order.

For many revolving weeks Mr. Burton delighted
Dyson by his agreeable conversation, diversified by
anecdote, and interspersed with the narration of
singular adventures. Finally, however, he vanished
as suddenly as he had appeared, and on the occasion
of his last visit he contrived to loot a copy of his
namesake's Anatomy. Dyson, considering this vio-
lent attack on the rights of property, and certain
glaring inconsistencies in the talk of his late friend,
arrived at the conclusion that his stories were fabu-
lous, and that the Iron Maid only existed in the
sphere of a decorative imagination.

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER.

AMONGST the many friends who were favored with
the occasional pleasure of Mr. Dyson's society was
Mr. Edgar Bussell, realist and obscure straggler,
who occupied a small back room on the second floor
of a house inAbingdon Grove, Notting Hill. Turn-
ing off from the main street and walking a few
paces onward, one was conscious of a certain calm,
a drowsy peace, which made the feet inclined to
loiter; and this was ever the atmosphere of Abing-
don Grove. The houses stood a little back, with
gardens where the lilac and laburnum and blood-
red may blossomed gayly in their seasons, and there
was a corner where an older house in another street
had managed to keep a back garden of real extent;
a walled-in garden whence there came a pleasant
scent of greenness after the rains of early summer,
where old elms held memories of the open fields,
where there was yet sweet grass to walk on. The
houses in Abingdon Grove belonged chiefly to the
nondescript stucco period of thirty-five years ago,
tolerably built with passable accommodation for
moderate incomes ; they had largely passed into the
state of lodgings, and cards bearing the inscription
" Furnished Apartments " were not infrequent over
the doors. Here, then, in a house of sufficiently
good appearance, Mr. Eussell had established him-

THE DECOKATIVE IMAGINATION. 149

self; for he looked upon the traditional dirt and
squalor of Grub Street as a false and obsolete con-
vention, and preferred, as he said, to live within
sight of green leaves. Indeed, from his room one
had a magnificent view of a long line of gardens,
and a screen of poplars shut out the melancholy
back premises of Wilton Street during the summer
months. Mr. Kussell lived chiefly on bread and
tea, for his means were of the smallest; but when
Dyson came to see him, he would send out the slavey
for six-ale, and Dyson was always at liberty to
smoke as much of his own tobacco as he pleased.
The landlady had been so unfortunate as to have
her drawing-room floor vacant for many months;
a card had long proclaimed the void within; and
Dyson, when he walked up the steps one evening in
early autumn, had a sense that something was miss-
ing, and, looking at the fanlight, saw the appealing
card had disappeared.

"You have let your first floor, haye you?" he
said, as he greeted Mr. Russell.

"Yes; it was taken about a fortnight ago by a
lady."/

"Indeed" said Dyson, always curious; "a young
lady?"

"Yes, I believe so. She is a widow, and wears a
thick crape veil. I have met her once or twice on
the stairs and in the street, but I should not know
her face."

" Well ," said Dyson, when the beer had arrived,
and the pipes were in full blast, "and what have
you been doing? Do you find the work getting any
easier? "

150 THE THREE IMPOSTOKS.

"Alas! " said the young man, with an expression
of great gloom, "the life is a purgatory, and all but
a hell. I write, picking out my words, weighing
and balancing the force of every syllable, calcu-
lating the minutest effects that language can pro-
duce, erasing and rewriting, and spending a whole
evening over a page of manuscript. And then in
the morning when I read what I have written —
Well, there is nothing to be done but to throw it
in the waste-paper basket if the verso has been
already written on, or to put it in the drawer if
the other side happens to be clean. When I have
written a phrase which undoubtedly embodies a
happy turn of thought, I find it dressed up in feeble
commonplace; and when the style is good, it serves
only to conceal the baldness of superannuated fan-
cies. I sweat over my work, Dyson, — every finished
line means so much agony. I envy the lot of the
carpenter in the side street who has a craft which
he understands. When he gets an order for a table,
he does not writhe with anguish; but if I were so
unlucky as to get an order for a book, I think I
should go mad."

"My dear fellow, you take it all too seriously.
You should let the ink flow more readily. Above
all, firmly believe, when you sit down to write, that
you are an artist, and that whatever you are about
is a masterpiece. Suppose ideas fail you, say, as
I heard one of our most exquisite artists say,
"It '"s of no consequence; the ideas are all there, at
the bottom of that box of cigarettes." You, indeed,
smoke tobacco, but the application is the same.
Besides, you must have some happy moments, and
these should be ample consolation."

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 151

"Perhaps you are right. But such moments are
so few; and then there is the torture of a glori-
ous conception matched with execution beneath
the standard of the Family Story Paper. For in-
stance, I was happy for two hours a night or two
ago; 1 lay awake and saw visions. But then the
morning ! "

" What was your idea? "

"It seemed to me a splendid one: I thought of
Balzac and the 'Comedie Humaine,' of Zola and the
Eougon-Macquart family. It dawned upon me that
I would write the history of a street. Every house
should form a volume. I fixed upon the street, I
saw each house, and read, as clearly as in letters,
the physiology and psychology of each. The little
by-way stretched before me in its actual shape, — a
street that I know and have passed down a hundred
times, with some twenty houses, prosperous and
mean, and lilac bushes in purple blossom ; and yet
it was at the same time a symbol, a via dolorosa
of hopes cherished and disappointed, of years of
monotonous existence without content or discon-
tent, of tragedies and obscure sorrows; and on the
door of one of those houses I saw the red stain of
blood, and behind a window two shadows, blackened
and faded, on the blind , as they swayed on tightened
cords, — the shadows of a man and a woman hanging
in a vulgar, gas-lit parlor. These were my fancies;
but when pen touched paper, they shrivelled and
vanished away."

"Yes," said Dyson, "there is a lot in that. I
envy you the pains of transmuting vision into
reality, and still more I envy you the day when you

152 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

will look at your bookshelf and see twenty goodly
books upon the shelves, — the series complete and
done forever. Let me entreat you to have them
bound in solid parchment, with gold lettering. It
is the only real cover for a valiant book. When I
look in at the windows of some choice shop, and
see the bindings of Levant morocco, with pretty
tools and panellings, and your sweet contrasts of
red and green, I say to myself, 'These are not books,
but bibelots. ' A book bound so — a true book , mind
you — is like a Gothic statue draped in brocade of
Lyons."

" Alas ! " said Kussell, " we need not discuss the
binding, — the books are not begun."

The talk went on as usual till eleven o'clock,
when Dyson bade his friend good-night. He knew
the way downstairs, and walked down by himself;
but greatly to his surprise, as he crossed the first-
floor landing, the door opened slightly, and a hand
was stretched out, beckoning.

Dyson was not the man to hesitate under such cir-
cumstances. In a moment he saw himself involved
in adventure; and, as he told himself, the Dysons
had never disobeyed a lady's summons. Softly,
then, with due regard for the lady's honor, he
would have entered the room, when a low but clear
voice spoke to him, —

"Go downstairs and open the door, and shut it
again rather loudly. Then come up to me ; and for
heaven's sake, walk softly."

Dyson obeyed her commands, — not without some
hesitation, for he was afraid of meeting the land-
lady or the maid on his return journey. But

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 153

walking like a cat, and making each step he trod
on crack loudly, he flattered himself that he had
escaped observation; and as he gained the top of
the stairs, the door opened wide before him, and he
found himself in the lady's drawing-room, bowing
awkwardly.

"Pray be seated, sir. Perhaps this chair will be
the best; it was the favored chair of my landlady's
deceased husband. I would ask you to smoke, but
the odor would betray me. I know my proceedings
must seem to you unconventional; but I saw you
arrive this evening, and I do not think you would
refuse to help a woman who is so unfortunate as
lam."

Mr. Dyson looked shyly at the young lady before
him. She was dressed in deep mourning; but the
piquant smiling face and charming hazel eyes ill
accorded with the heavy garments, and the moulder-
ing surface of the crape.

"Madam," he said gallantly, "your instinct has
served you well. We will not trouble, if you
please,, about the question of social conventions;
the chivalrous gentleman knows nothing of such
matters. I hope I may be privileged to serve
you."

" You are very kind to me, but I knew it would
be so. Alas, sir, I have had experience of life,
and I am rarely mistaken. Yet man is too often so
vile and so misjudging that I trembled even as I
resolved to take this step, which, for all I knew,
might prove to be both desperate and ruinous."

"With me you have nothing to fear," said Dyson.
"I was nurtured in the faith of chivalry, and I have

154 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

always endeavored to remember the proud tradi-
tions of my race. Confide in me, then, and count
upon my secrecy, and, if it prove possible, you may
rely on my help.7'

"Sir, I will not waste your time, which I am
sure is valuable, by idle parleyings. Learn, then,
that I am a fugitive, and in hiding here. 1 place
myself in your power; you have but to describe my
features, and I fall into the hands of my relentless
enemy."

Mr. Dyson wondered for a passing instant how
this could be; but he only renewed his promise of
silence, repeating that he would be the embodied
spirit of dark concealment.

"Good," said the lady; "the Oriental fervor of
your style is delightful. In the first place, I must
disabuse your mind of the conviction that I am a
widow. These gloomy vestments have been forced
on me by strange circumstance; in plain language,
I have deemed it expedient to go disguised. You
have a friend, I think, in the house, — Mr. Eussell?
He seems of a coy and retiring nature."

"Excuse me, madam," said Dyson, "he is not
coy, but he is a realist ; and perhaps you are aware
that no Carthusian monk can emulate the clois-
tral seclusion in which a realistic novelist loves to
shroud himself. It is his way of observing human
nature."

"Well, well, "said the lady; "all this, though
deeply interesting is not germane to our affair. I
must tell you my history."

With these words the young lady proceeded to
relate the

THE RECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 155

NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER.

My name is Leicester; my father, Major-General
Wyn Leicester, a distinguished officer of artillery,
succumbed five years ago to a complicated liver
complaint acquired in the deadly climate of India.
A year later my only brother, Francis, came home
after an exceptionally brilliant career at the Univer-
sity, and settled down with the resolution of a her-
mit to master what has been well called the great
legend of the law. He was a man who seemed to
live in utter indifference to everything that is called
pleasure ; and though he was handsomer than most
men, and could talk as merrily and wittily as if he
were a mere vagabond, he avoided society, and shut
himself up in a large room at the top of the house
to make himself a lawyer. Ten hours a day of
hard reading was at first his allotted portion; from
the first light in the east to the late afternoon he
remained shut up with his books, taking a hasty
half-hour's lunch with me as if he grudged the
wasting' of the moments, and going out for a short
walk when it began to grow dusk. I thought that
Tsuch relentless application must be injurious, and
tried to cajole him from the crabbed text-books ; but
his ardor seemed to grow rather than diminish, and
his daily tale of hours increased. I spoke to him
seriously, suggesting some occasional relaxation, if
it were but an idle afternoon with a harmless novel ;
but he laughed, and said that he read about feudal
tenures when he felt in need of amusement, and
scoffed at the notion of theatres, or a month's fresh

156 THE THEEE IMPOSTORS.

air. I confessed that he looked well, and seemed
not to suffer from his labors ; but I knew that such
unnatural toil would take revenge at last, and I
was not mistaken. A look of anxiety began to lurk
about his eyes, arid he seemed languid, and at last
he avowed that he was no longer in perfect health ;
he was troubled, he said, with a sensation of dizzi-
ness, and awoke now and then of nights from fear-
ful dreams, terrified and cold with icy sweats. " I
am taking care of myself," he said; "so you must
not trouble. I passed the whole of yesterday after-
noon in idleness, leaning back in that comfortable
chair you gave me, and scribbling nonsense on a
sheet of paper. No, no; I will not overdo my
work. I shall be well enough in a week or two,
depend upon it."

Yet, in spite of his assurances, I could see that
he grew no better, but rather worse; he would
enter the drawing-room with a face all miserably
wrinkled and despondent, and endeavor to look
gayly when my eyes fell on him, and I thought
such symptoms of evil omen, and was frightened
sometimes at the nervous irritation of his move-
ments, and at glances which I could not decipher.
Much against his will, I prevailed on him to have
medical advice, and with an ill grace he called in
our old doctor.

Dr. Haberden cheered me after his examination
of his patient.

"There is nothing really much amiss," he said to
me. "No doubt he reads too hard, and eats hastily,
and then goes back again to his books in too great a
hurry; and the natural consequence is some diges-

THE RECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 157

tive trouble, and a little mischief in the nervous
system. But I think — I do, indeed, Miss Leicester
— that we shall be able to set this all right. I have
written him a prescription which ought to do great
things. So you have no cause for anxiety."

My brother insisted on having the prescription
made up by a chemist in the neighborhood; it was
an odd old-fashioned shop, devoid of the studied
coquetry and calculated glitter that make so gay
a show on the counters and shelves of the modern
apothecary; but Erancis liked the old chemist, and
believed in the scrupulous purity of his drugs. The
medicine was sent in due course, and I saw that my
brother took it regularly after lunch and dinner.
It was an innocent-looking white powder, of which
a little was dissolved in a glass of cold water. I
stirred it in, and it seemed to disappear, leaving the
water clear and colorless. At first Francis seemed
to benefit greatly; the weariness vanished from his
face, and he became more cheerful than he had ever
been since the time when he left school; he talked
gayly of reforming himself, and avowed to me that
he had wasted his time.

"I have given too many hours to law," he said,
laughing; "I think you have saved me in the nick
of time. Come, I shall be Lord Chancellor yet,
but I must not forget life. You and I will have a
holiday together before long; we will go to Paris
and enjoy ourselves, and keep away from the Bibli-
otheque Rationale."

I confessed myself delighted with the prospect.

"When shall we go?" I said. "I can start the
day after to-morrow, if you like."

158 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"Ah, that is perhaps a little too soon; after all,
I do not know London yet, and I suppose a man
ought to give the pleasures of his own country the
first choice. But we will go off together in a week
or two, so try and furbish up your French. I only
know law French myself, and I am afraid that
wouldn't do."

We were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed off
his medicine with a parade of carousal as if it had
been wine from some choicest bin.

"Has it any particular taste?" I said.

"No; I should not know I was not drinking
water," and he got up from his chair, and began to
pace up and down the room as if he were undecided
as to what he should do next.

"Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room," I
said, " or would you like to smoke ? "

"No; I think I will take a turn, it seems a
pleasant evening. Look at the afterglow; why, it
is as if a great city were burning in flames, and
down there between the dark houses it is raining
blood fast, fast. Yes, I will go out. I may be in
soon, but I shall take my key, so good-night, dear,
if I don't see you again."

The door slammed behind him, and I saw him
walk lightly down the street, swinging his malacca
cane, and I felt grateful to Dr. Haberden for such
an improvement.

I believe my brother came home very late that
night ; but he was in a merry mood the next morning.

"I walked on without thinking where I was
going," he said, "enjoying the freshness of the air,
and livened by the crowds as I reached more fre-

THE RECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 159

quented quarters. And then I met an old college
friend, Orford, in the press of the pavement, and
then — well, we enjoyed ourselves. I have felt what
it is to be young and a man. I find I have blood in
my veins, as other men have. I made an appoint-
ment with Orford for to-night; there will be a
little party of us at the restaurant. Yes, I shall
enjoy myself for a week or two, and hear the
chimes at midnight, and then we will go for our
little trip together."

Such was the transmutation of my brother's char-
acter that in a few days he became a lover of
pleasure, a careless and merry idler of western
pavements, a hunter out of snug restaurants, and a
fine critic of fantastic dancing; he grew fat before
my eyes, and said no more of Paris, for he had
clearly found his Paradise in London. I rejoiced,
and yet wondered a little^ for there was, I thought,
something in his gayety that indefinitely displeased
me, though I could not have defined my feeling.
But by degrees there came a change; he returned
still in the cold hours of the morning, but I heard
no more about his pleasures, and one morning as we
sat at breakfast together, I looked suddenly into
his eyes and saw a stranger before me.

"Oh, Francis!" I cried; "Oh, Francis, Francis,
what have you done ? " and rending sobs cut the
words short, and I went weeping out of the room,
for though I knew nothing, yet I knew all, and by
some odd play of thought I remembered the evening
when he first went abroad to prove his manhood,
and the picture of the sunset sky glowed before me ;
the clouds like a city in burning flames, and the rain

160 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

of blood. Yet I did battle with such thoughts,
resolving that perhaps, after all, no great harm had
been done, and in the evening at dinner I resolved
to press him to fix a day for our holiday in Paris.
We had talked easily enough, and my brother had
just taken his medicine, which he had continued all
the while. I was about to begin my topic, when
the words forming in my mind vanished, and I won-
dered for a second what icy and intolerable weight
oppressed my heart and suffocated me as with the
unutterable horror of the coffin-lid nailed down on
the living.

We had dined without candles, and the room had
slowly grown from twilight to gloom, and the walls
and corners were indistinct in the shadow. But
from where I sat I looked out into the street; and
as I thought of what I would say to Francis, the
sky began to flush and shine, as it had done on a
well-remembered evening, and in the gap between
two dark masses that were houses an awful pageantry
of flame appeared. Lurid whorls of writhed cloud,
and utter depths burning, and gray masses like the
fume blown from a smoking city, and an evil glory
blazing far above shot with tongues of more ardent
fire, and below as if there were a deep pool of blood.
I looked down to where my brother sat facing me,
and the words were shaped on my lips, when I saw
his hand resting on the table. Between the thumb
and forefinger of the closed hand, there was a mark,
a small patch about the size of a sixpence, and
somewhat of the color of a bad bruise. Yet, by
some sense I cannot define, I knew that what I saw
was no bruise at all. Oh, if human flesh could

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATEK. 161

burn with flame, and if flame could be black as
pitch, such was that before me! Without thought
or fashioning of words, gray horror shaped within
me at the sight, and in an inner cell it was known
to be a brand. For a moment the stained sky
became dark as midnight, and when the light
returned to me, I was alone in the silent room, and
soon after I heard my brother go out.

Late as it was, I put on my bonnet and went to
Dr. Haberden, and in his great consulting-room*
ill-lighted by a candle which the doctor brought in
with him, with stammering lips, and a voice that
would break in spite of my resolve, I told him all ;
from the day on which my brother began to take
the medicine down to the dreadful thing I had seen
scarcely half an hour before.

When I had done, the doctor looked at me for
a minute with an expression of great pity on his
face.

"My dear Miss Leicester," he said, "you have
evidently been anxious about your brother; you
have been worrying over him, I am sure. Come,
now, is it not so ? "

"I have certainly been anxious/' I said. "For
the last week or two I have not felt at ease."

"Quite so; you know, of course, what a queer
thing the brain is ?"

"I understand what you mean; but I was not
deceived. I saw what I have told you with my
own eyes."

"Yes, yes, of course. But your eyes had been
staring at that very curious sunset we had to-night.
That is the only explanation. You will see it in
11

162 . THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

the proper light to-morrow, I am sure. But, re-
member, I arn always ready to give any help that
is in my power; do not scruple to come to me, or
to send for me if you are in any distress."

I went away but little comforted, all confusion
and terror and sorrow, not knowing where to turn.
When my brother and I met the next day, I looked
quickly at him, and noticed, with a sickening at
heart, that the right hand, the hand on which I
had clearly seen the patch as of a black fire, was
wrapped up with a handkerchief.

"What is the matter with your hand, Francis?"
I said in a steady voice.

"Nothing of consequence. I cut a finger last
night, and it bled rather awkwardly, so I did it up
roughly to the best of my ability."

"I will do it neatly for you, if you like."

"No, thank you, dear, this will answer very well.
Suppose we have breakfast; I am quite hungry."

We sat down, and I watched him. He scarcely
ate or drank at all, but tossed his meat to the dog
when he thought my eyes were turned away; and
there was a look in his eyes that I had never yet
seen, and the thought fled across my mind that it
was a look that was scarcely human. I was firmly
convinced that awful and incredible as was the thing
I had seen the night before, yet it was no illusion,
no glamour of bewildered sense, and in the course of
the morning I went again to the doctor's house.

He shook his head with an air puzzled and
incredulous, and seemed to reflect for a few minutes.

" And you say he still keeps up the medicine ? But
why? As I understand, all the symptoms he com-

THE EECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 163

plained of have disappeared long ago; why should
he go on taking the stuff when he is quite well ?
And by the bye where did he get it made up ? At
Sayce's ? I never send any one there; the old man
is getting careless. Suppose you come with me to
the chemist's; I should like to have some talk with
him."

We walked together to the shop. Old Sayce
knew Dr. Haberden, and was quite ready to give
any information.

" You have been sending that in to Mr. Leicester
for some weeks, I think, on my prescription," said
the doctor/ giving the old man a pencilled scrap of
paper.

The chemist put on his great spectacles with
trembling uncertainty, and held up the paper with
a shaking hand.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I have very little of it left;
it is rather an uncommon drug, and I have had it
in stock some time. I must get in some more, if
Mr. Leicester goes on with it."

"Kindly let me have a look at the stuff," said
Haberden; and the chemist gave him a glass bottle.
He took out the stopper and smelt the contents, and
looked strangely at the old man.

"Where did you get this?" he said, "and what
is it ? For one thing, Mr. Sayce, it is not what
I prescribed. Yes, yes, I see the label is right
enough, but I tell you this is not the drug."

"I have had it a long time," said the old man,
in feeble terror. " I got it from Burbage's in the
usual way. It is not prescribed often , and I have
had it on the shelf for some years. You see there
is very little left."

164 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"You had better give it to me," said Haberden.
"I am afraid something wrong has happened."

We went out of the shop in silence, the doctor
carrying the bottle neatly wrapped in paper under
his arm.

"Dr. Haberden," I said when we had walked a
little way — "Dr. Haberden."

" Yes, " he said, looking at me gloomily enough.

" I should like you to tell me what niy brother
has been taking twice a day for the last month
or so."

"Frankly, Miss Leicester, I don't know. We
will speak of this when we get to my house."

We walked on quickly without another word till
we reached Dr. Haberden's. He asked me to sit
down, and began pacing up and down the room, his
face clouded over, as I could see, with no common
fears.

"Well," he said at length, "this is all very
strange; it is only natural that you should feel
alarmed, and I must confess that my mind is far
from easy. We will put aside, if you please, what
you told me last night and this morning, but the fact
remains that for the last few weeks Mr. Leicester
has been impregnating his system with a drug which
is completely unknown to me. I tell you, it is not
what I ordered; and what that stuff in the bottle
really is remains to be seen."

He undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted a
few grains of the white powder on to a piece of
paper, and peered curiously at it.

" Yes," he said, " it is like the sulphate of quinine,
as you say; it is flaky. But smell it."

THE EECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 165

He held the bottle to me, and I bent over it. It
was a strange sickly smell, vaporous and overpower-
ing, like some strong anaesthetic.

"I shalt have it analyzed," said Haberden. "I
have a friend who has devoted his whole life to
chemistry as a science. Then we shall have some-
thing to go upon. No, no, say no more about that
other matter; I cannot listen to that, and take my
advice and think no more about it yourself.'7

That evening my brother did not go out as usual
after dinner.

"I have had my fling," he said with a queer
laugh; "and I must go back to my old ways. A
little law will be quite a relaxation after so sharp
a dose of pleasure," and he grinned to himself, and
soon after went up to his room. His hand was still
all bandaged.

Dr. Haberden called a few days later.

"I have no special news to give you," he said.
" Chambers is out of town, so I know no more about
that stuff than you do. But I should like to see Mr.
Leicester if he is in."

"He is in his room, I said; "I will tell him you
are here."

"No, no, I will go up to him; we will have a
little quiet talk together. 1 dare say that we have
made a good deal of fuss about very little ; for, after
all, whatever the white powder may be, it seems
to have done him good."

The doctor went upstairs, and standing in the
hall I heard his knock, and the opening and shut-
ting of the door; and then I waited in the silent
house for an hour, and the stillness grew more and

166 THE THREE IMPOSTOKS.

more intense as the hands of the clock crept round.
Then there sounded from above the noise of a door
shut sharply, and the doctor was coming down the
stairs. His footsteps crossed the hall, and there
was a pause at the door. I drew a long sick breath
with difficulty, and saw my face white in a little
mirror, and he came in and stood at the door.
There was an unutterable horror shining in his
eyes ; he steadied himself by holding' the back of a
chair with one hand, and his lower lip trembled
like a horse's, and he gulped and stammered unin-
telligible sounds before he spoke.

"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whis-
per. " I have been sitting in his presence for the
last hour. My God! and I am alive and in my
senses! I, who have dealt with death all my life,
and have dabbled with the melting ruins of the
earthly tabernacle. But not this ! Oh, not this ! "
and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut
out the sight of something before him.

"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he
said with more composure. " I can do nothing in
this house. Good-bye."

As I watched him totter down the steps and along
the pavement towards his house, it seemed to me
that he had aged by ten years since the morning.

My brother remained in his room. He called out
to me in a voice I hardly recognized, that he was
very busy, and would like his meals brought to his
door and left there, and I gave the order to the ser-
vants. From that day it seemed as if the arbitrary
conception we call time had been annihilated for
me. I lived in an ever present sense of horror,

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 167

going through the routine of the house mechan-
ically, and only speaking a few necessary words to
the servants. Now and then I went out and paced
the streets for an hour or two and came home again;
but whether I were without or within, my spirit
delayed before the closed door of the upper room,
and, shuddering, waited for it to open. I have said
that I scarcely reckoned time, but I suppose it must
have been a fortnight after Dr. Haberden's visit
that I came home from my stroll a little refreshed
and lightened. The air was sweet and,, pleasant,
and the hazy form of green leaves, floating cloud-
like in the square, and the smell of blossoms, had
charmed my senses, and I felt happier and walked
more briskly. As I delayed a moment at the verge
of the pavement, waiting for a van to pass by before
crossing over to the house, I happened to look up at
the windows, and instantly there was the rush and
swirl of deep cold waters in my ears, and my heart
leapt up, and fell down, down as into a deep hollow ,
and I was amazed with a dread and terror with-
out form" or shape. I stretched out a hand blindly
through folds of thick darkness, from the black
and shadowy valley, and held myself from falling,
while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed
and tilted, and the sense of solid things seemed to
sink away from under me. I had glanced up at the
window of my brother's study, and at that moment
the blind was drawn aside, and something that had
life stared out into the world. Nay, I cannot say
I saw a face or any human likeness ; a living thing,
two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they
were in the midst of something as formless as my

168 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

fear, the symbol and presence of all evil and all
hideous corruption. I stood shuddering and quak-
ing as with the grip of ague, sick with unspeakable
agonies of fear and loathing, and for five minutes
I could not summon force or motion to my limbs.
When I was within the door, I ran up the stairs to
my brother's room, and knocked.

"Francis, Francis," I cried, "for heaven's sake
answer me. What is the horrible thing in your
room? Cast it out, Francis, cast it from you!"

I heard a noise as of feet shuffling slowly and
awkwardly, and a choking, gurgling sound, as if
some one was struggling to find utterance, and then
the noise of a voice, broken and stifled, and words
that I could scarcely understand.

"There is nothing here," the voice said. "Pray
do not disturb me. I am not very well to-day."

I turned away , horrified and yet helpless. I could
do nothing, and I wondered why Francis had lied
to me, for I had seen the appearance beyond the
glass too plainly to be deceived, though it was but
the sight of a moment. And I sat still, conscious
that there had been something else, something I had
seen in the first flash of terror before those burning
eyes had looked at me. Suddenly I remembered;
as I lifted my face the blind was being drawn back,
and I had had an instant's glance of the thing that
was moving it, and in my recollection I knew that
a hideous image was engraved forever on my brain.
It was not a hand : there were no fingers that held
the blind, but a black stump pushed it aside; the
mouldering outline and the clumsy movement as of a
beast's paw had glowed into my senses before the

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 169

darkling waves of terror had overwhelmed me as I
went down quick into the pit. My mind was aghast
at the thought of this, and of the awful presence
that dwelt with my brother in his room ; I went to
his door and cried to him again, but no answer
came. That night one of the servants came up to
me and told me in a whisper that for three days
food had been regularly placed at the door and left
untouched; the maid had knocked, but had received
no answer; she had heard the noise of shuffling feet
that I had noticed. Day after day went by, and
still my brother's meals were brought to his door
and left untouched; and though I knocked and
called again and again, I could get no answer. The
servants began to talk to me; it appeared they
were as alarmed as I. The cook said that when my
brother first shut himself up in his room, she used
to hear him come out at night and go about the
house ; and once, she said , the hall door had opened
and closed again, but for several nights she had
heard no sound. The climax came at last. It was
in the dusk of the evening, and I was sitting in the
darkening dreary room when a terrible shriek jarred
and rang harshly out of the silence, and I heard a
frightened scurry of feet dashing down the stairs.
I waited, and the servant maid staggered into the
room and faced me, white and trembling.

"0 Miss Helen," she whispered. *'0h, for the
Lord's sake, Miss Helen, what has happened? Look
at my hand, miss; look at that hand ! " I drew her
to the window, and saw there was a black wet stain
upon her hand.

"I do not understand you," I said. "Will you
explain to me ? "

170 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"I was doing your room just' now,'7 she began.
"I was turning down the bedclothes, and all of a
sudden there was something fell upon my hand wet,
and I looked up, and the ceiling was black and
dripping on me."

I looked hard at her, and bit my lip. "Come
with me," I said. " Bring your candle with you."

The room I slept in was beneath my brother's,
and as I went in I felt I was trembling. I looked
up at the ceiling, and saw a patch, all black and
wet, and a dew of black drops upon it, and- a pool
of horrible liquor soaking into the white bedclothes.

I ran upstairs and knocked loudly.

"0 Francis, Francis, my dear brother," I cried,
"what has happened to you? "

And I listened. There was a sound of choking,
and a noise like water bubbling and regurgitating, but
nothing else, and I called louder, but no answer came.

In spite of what Dr. Haberden had said, I went
to him , and with tears streaming down my cheeks,
I told him of all that had happened, and he listened
to me with a face set hard and grim.

"For your father's sake," he said at last, "I will
go with you, though I can do nothing."

We went, out together; the streets were dark and
silent, and heavy with heat and a drought of many
weeks. I saw the doctor's face white under the gas-
lamps, and whbTi we reached the house his hand
was shaking. We did not hesitate, but went up-
stairs directly. I held the lamp, and he called out
in a loud, determined voice : —

"Mr. Leicester, do you hear me? I insist on
seeing you. Answer me at once."

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 171

There was no answer, but we both heard that
choking noise I have mentioned.

" Mr. Leicester, I am waiting for you. Open the
door this instant, or I shall break it down." And
he called a third time in a voice that rang and
echoed from the walls.

" Mr. Leicester ! For the last time I order you to
open the door."

"Ah!" he said, after a pause of heavy silence,
" we are wasting time here. Will you be so kind
as to get me a poker, or something of the kind ?"

I ran into a little room at the back where odd
articles were kept, and found a heavy adze-like tool
that I thought might serve the doctor's purpose.

"Very good," he said, "that will do, I dare say.
I give you notice, Mr. Leicester," he cried loudly
at the keyhole, " that I am now about to break into
your room."

Then I heard the wrench of the adze, and the-
woodwork split and cracked under it, and with a
loud crash the door suddenly hurst open ; and for a
moment we started back aghast at a fearful scream-
ing cry, no human voice, but as the roar of a mon-
ster, that burst forth inarticulate and struck at us
out of the darkness.

"Hold the lamp," said the doctor, and we went
in and glanced quickly round the room. "There
it is," said Dr. Haberden, drawing a quick breath;
"look, in that corner."

I looked, and a pang of horror seized my heart as
with a white-hot iron. There upon the floor was a
dark and putrid mass, seething with corruption and
hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but

172 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

melting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling
with unctuous oily bubbles like boiling pitch. And
out of the midst of it shone two burning points like
eyes, and I saw a writhing and stirring as of limbs,
and something moved and lifted up that might have
been an arm. The doctor took a step forward, and
raised the iron bar and struck at the burning points,
and drove in the weapon, and struck again and again
in a fury of loathing. At last the thing was quiet.

A week or two later, when I had to some extent
recovered from the terrible shock, Dr. Haberden
came to see me.

"I have sold my practice," he began, "and to-
morrow I am sailing on a long voyage. I do not
know whether I shall ever return to England ; in all
probability I shall buy a little land in California,
and settle there for the remainder of my life. I
have brought you this packet, which you may open
and read when you feel able to do so. It contains
the report of Dr. Chambers on what I submitted to
him. Good-bye, Miss Leicester, good-bye."

When he was gone, I opened the envelope ; I could
not wait, and proceeded to read the papers within.
Here is the manuscript; and if you will allow me,
I will read you the astounding story it contains.

"My dear Haberden," the letter began, "I have
delayed inexcusably in answering your questions as
to the white substance you sent me. To tell you
the truth, I have hesitated for some time as to what
course I should adopt, for there is a bigotry and an
orthodox standard in physical science as in the-
ology, and I knew that if I told you the truth I

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 173

should offend rooted prejudices which I once held
dear myself. However, I have determined to be
plain with you, and first I must enter into a short
personal explanation.

"You have known me, Haberden, for many years
as a scientific man ; you and I have often talked of
our profession together, and discussed the hopeless
gulf that opens before the feet of those who think
to attain to truth by any means whatsoever, except
the beaten way of experiment and observation, in
the sphere of material things. I remember the
scorn with which you have spoken to me of men of
science who have dabbled a little in the unseen, and
have timidly hinted that perhaps the senses are not,
after all, the eternal, impenetrable bounds of all
knowledge, the everlasting walls beyond which no
human being has ever passed. We have laughed
together heartily , and I think justly , at the " occult "
follies of the day, disguised under various names,
— the mesmerisms, spiritualisms, materializations,
theosophies, all the rabble rant of imposture, with
their machinery of poor tricks and feeble conjuring,
the true back-parlor magic of shabby London streets.
Yet, in spite of what I have said, I must confess to
you that I am no materialist, taking the word of
course in its usual signification. It is now many
years since I have convinced myself, convinced
myself a sceptic remember, that the old iron-bound
theory is utterly and entirely false. Perhaps this
confession will not wound you so sharply as it
would have done twenty years ago ; for I think you
cannot have failed to notice that for some time
hypotheses have been advanced by men of pure

174 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

science which, are nothing less than transcendental,
and I suspect that most modern chemists and biolo-
gists of repute would not hesitate to subscribe the
dictum of the old Schoolman, Omnia exeunt in
mysterium, which means, I take it, that every
branch of human knowledge if traced up to its
source and final principles vanishes into mystery.
I need not trouble you now with a detailed account
of the painful steps which led me to my conclu-
sions ; a few simple experiments suggested a doubt
as to my then standpoint, and a train of thought
that rose from circumstances comparatively trifling
brought me far. My old conception of the universe
has been swept away, and I stand in a world that
seems as strange and awful to me as the endless
waves of the ocean seen for the first time, shining,
from a Peak in Darien. Now I know that the
walls of sense that seemed so impenetrable, that
seemed to loom up above the heavens and to be
founded below the depths, and to shut us in for-
evermore, are no such everlasting impassable bar-
riers as we fancied, but thinnest and most airy veils
that melt away before the seeker, and dissolve as
the early mist of the morning about the brooks. I
know that you never adopted the extreme material-
istic position: you did not go about trying to prove
a universal negative, for your logical sense with-
held you from that crowning absurdity ; yet I am
sure that you will find all that I am saying strange
and repellent to your habits of thought. Yet,
Haberden, what I tell you is the truth, nay, to
adopt our common language, the sole and scientific
truth, verified by experience; and the universe is

THE RECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 175

verily more splendid and more awful than we used
to dream. The whole universe, my friend, is a tre-
mendous sacrament; a mystic, ineffable force and
energy, veiled by an outward form of matter; and
man, and the sun and the other stars, and the
flower of the grass, and the crystal in the test-tube,
are each and every one as spiritual, as material^ and
subject to an inner working.

" You will perhaps wonder, Haberden, whence all
this tends; but I think a little thought will make
it clear. You will understand that from such a
standpoint the whole view of things is changed, and
what we thought incredible and absurd may be pos-
sible enough. In short, we must look at legend
and belief with other eyes, and be prepared to
accept tales that had become mere fables. Indeed,
this is no such great demand. After all, modern
science will concede as much, in a hypocritical
manner. You must not, it is true, believe in witch-
craft, but you may credit hypnotism ; ghosts are out
of date, but there is a good deal to be said for the
theory of telepathy. Give a superstition a Greek
name, and believe in it, should almost be a proverb.

"So much for my personal explanation. You sent
me, Haberden, a phial, stoppered and sealed, con-
taining a small quantity of a flaky white powder,
obtained from a chemist who has been dispensing
it to one of your patients. I am not surprised to
hear that this powder refused to yield any results
to your analysis. It is a substance which was
known to a few many hundred years ago, but which
I never expected to have submitted to me from the
shop of a modern apothecary. There seems no

176 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

reason to doubt the truth of the man's tale; he no
doubt got, as he says, the rather uncommon salt
you prescribed from the wholesale chemist's; and
it has probably remained on his shelf for twenty
years, or perhaps longer. Here what we call chance
and coincidence begins to work; during all these
years the salt in the bottle was exposed to certain
recurring variations of temperature, variations prob-
ably ranging from 40° to 80°. And, as it happens,
such changes, recurring year after year at irregular
intervals, and with varying degrees of intensity and
duration, have constituted a process, and a process
so complicated and so delicate, that I question
whether modern scientific apparatus directed with
the utmost precision could produce the same result.
The white powder you sent me is something very
different from the drug you prescribed; it is the
powder from which the wine of the Sabbath, the
Vinum, Sabbati was prepared. No doubt you have
read of the Witches7 Sabbath, and have laughed at
the tales which terrified our ancestors; the black
cats, and the broomsticks, and dooms pronounced
against some old woman's cow. Since I have known
the truth I have often reflected that it is on the
whole a happy thing that such burlesque as this is
believed, for it serves to conceal much that it is
better should not be known generally. However, if
you care to read the appendix to Payne Knight's
monograph, you will find that the true Sabbath
was something very different, though the writer has
very nicely refrained from printing all he knew.
The secrets of the true Sabbath were the secrets of
remote times surviving into the Middle Ages, secrets

THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. 177

of an evil science which existed long before Aryan
man entered Europe. Men and women, seduced
from their homes on specious pretences, were met
by beings well qualified to assume, as they did
assume, the part of devils, and taken by their
guides to some desolate and lonely place, known to
the initiate by long tradition and unknown to all
else. Perhaps it was a cave in some bare and wind-
swept hill; perhaps some inmost recess of a great
forest, and there the Sabbath was held. There, in
the blackest hour of night, the Vinum Sabbati was
prepared, and this evil graal was poured forth and
offered to the neophytes, and they partook of an
infernal sacrament; sumentes calicem principis infer'
ornm, as an old author well expresses it. And
suddenly, each one that had drunk found himself
attended by -a companion, a shape of glamour and
unearthly allurement, beckoning him apart to share
in joys more exquisite, more piercing than the
thrill of any dream, to tfie consummation of the
marriage of the Sabbath. It is hard to write of
such things as these, and chiefly because that shape
that allured with loveliness was no hallucination,
but, awful as it is to express, the man himself.
By the power of that Sabbath wine, a few grains
of white powder thrown into a glass of water, the
house of life was riven asunder, and the human
trinity dissolved, and the worm which never dies,
that which lies sleeping within us all, was made
tangible and an external thing, and clothed with a
garment of flesh. And then m_ the hour of mid-
night, the primal fall was repeated and re-presented,
and the awful thing veiled in the mythos ,of the
12

178 THE THKEE IMPOSTORS.

Tree in the Garden was done anew. Such was the
nuptiov Sabbati.

" I prefer to say no more; you, Haberden, know as
well as I do that the most trivial laws of life are
not to be broken with impunity; and for so terrible
an act as this, in which the very inmost place of
the temple was broken open and denied, a terrible
vengeance followed. What began with corruption
'ended also with corruption."

Underneath is the following in Dr. Haberden's
writing : —

" The whole of the above is unfortunately strictly
and entirely true. Your brother confessed all to
me on that morning when I saw him in his room.
My attention was first attracted to the bandaged
hand, and I forced him to show it me. What I saw
made me, a medical man of many years standing,
grow sick with loathing; and the story I was forced
to listen to was infinitely more frightful than I
could have believed possible. It has tempted me
to doubt the Eternal Goodness which can permit
nature to offer such hideous possibilities; and if
you had not with your own eyes seen the end, I
should have said to you — disbelieve it all. I have
not, I think, many more weeks to live, but you are
young, and may forget all this.

"JOSEPH HABERDEN, M. D."

In the course of two or three months I heard
that Dr. Haberden had died at sea, shortly after
the ship left England.

THE KECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 179

Miss Leicester ceased speaking, and looked pathet-
ically at Dyson, who could not refrain from exhibit-
ing some symptoms of uneasiness.

He stuttered out some broken phrases expressive
of his deep interest in her extraordinary history,
and then said with a better grace —

"But, pardon me, Miss Leicester, I understood
you were in some difficulty. You were kind enough
to ask me to assist you in some way."

"Ah," she said, "I had forgotten that. My 'own
present trouble seems of such little consequence in
comparison with what I have told you. But as you
are so good to me, I will go on. You will scarcely
believe it, but I found that certain persons sus-
pected, or rather pretended to suspect that I had
murdered my brother. These persons were rela-
tives of mine, and their motives were extremely
sordid ones ; but I actually found myself subject to
the shameful indignity of being watched. Yes, sir,
my steps were dogged when I went abroad, and at
home I found myself exposed to constant if artful
observation. With my high spirit this was more
than I could brook, and I resolved to set my wits to
work and elude the persons who were shadowing
me. I was so fortunate as to succeed. I assumed
this disguise, and for some time have lain snug
and unsuspected. But of late I have reason to be-
lieve that the pursuer is on my track; unless I am
greatly deceived, I saw yesterday the detective who
is charged with the odious duty of observing my
movements. You, sir, are watchful and keen-
sighted; tell me, did you see any one lurking about
this evening ? "

180 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"I hardly think so," said Dyson, "but perhaps
you would give me some description of the detective
in question."

" Certainly ; he is a youngish man, dark, with
dark whiskers. He has adopted spectacles of large
size in the hope of disguising himself effectually,
but he cannot disguise his uneasy manner, and
the quick, nervous glances he casts to right and
left."

This piece of description was the last straw for
the unhappy Dyson, who was foaming with impa-
tience to get out of the house, and would gladly
have sworn eighteenth century oaths if propriety
had not frowned on such a course.

"Excuse me, Miss Leicester," he said with cold
politeness, "I cannot assist you."

"Ah!" she said sadly, "I have offended you in
some way. Tell me what I have done, and I will
ask you to forgive me."

"You are mistaken," said Dyson, grabbing his
hat, but speaking with some difficulty; "you have
done nothing, But, as I say, I cannot help you.
Perhaps," he added, with some tinge of sarcasm,
"my friend Russell might be of service."

"Thank you," she replied; "I will try him," and
the lady went off into a shriek of laughter, which
filled up Mr. Dyson's cup of scandal and confusion.
* He left the house shortly afterwards, and had the
peculiar delight of a five-mile walk, through streets
which slowly changed from black to gray, and
from gray to shining passages of glory for the sun
to brighten. Here and there he met or overtook
strayed revellers, but he reflected that no one could

THE KECLUSE OF BAYS WATER. 181

have spent the night in a more futile fashion than
himself; and when he reached his home he had
made resolves for reformation. He decided that he
would abjure all Milesian and Arabian methods of
entertainment, and subscribe to Mudie's for a regular
supply of mild and innocuous romance.

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN
CLERKENWELL.

MR. DYSOX had inhabited for some years a couple
of rooms in a moderately quiet street in Bloomsbury ,
where, as he somewhat pompously expressed it, he
held his finger on the pulse of life without being
deafened with the thousand rumors of the main
arteries of London. It was to him a source of
peculiar, if esoteric gratification, that from the adja-
cent corner of Tottenham Court Road a hundred
lines of omnibuses went to the four quarters of the
town; he would dilate on the facilities for visiting
Dalston, and dwell on the admirable line that knew
extremest Baling and the- streets beyond White-
chapel. His rooms, which had been originally " fur-
nished apartments ," he had gradually purged of their
more peccant parts; and though one would not find
here the glowing splendors of his old chambers in
the street off the Strand, there was something of
severe grace about the appointments which did
credit to his taste. The rugs were old, and of the
true faded beauty; the etchings, nearly all of them
proofs printed by the artist, made a good show with
broad white margins and black frames, and there
was no spurious black oak. Indeed, there was but
little furniture of any kind: a plain and honest

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 183

table, square and sturdy, stood in one corner; a
seventeenth century settle fronted the hearth; and
two wooden elbow-chairs, and a bookshelf of the
Empire made up the equipment, with an exception
worthy of note. For Dyson cared for none of these
things. His place was at his own bureau, a quaint
old piece of lacquered-work at which he would sit
for hour after hour, with his back to the room,
engaged in the desperate pursuit of literature, or, as
he termed his profession, the chase of the phrase.
The neat array of pigeon-holes and drawers teemed
and overflowed with manuscript and note-books,
the experiments and efforts of many years ; and the
inner well, a vast and cavernous receptacle, was
stuffed with accumulated ideas. Dyson was a crafts-
man who , loved all the detail and the technique of
his work intensely; and if, as has been hinted, he
deluded himself a little with the name of artist, yet
his amusements were eminently harmless, and, so
far as can be ascertained, he (or the publishers) had
chosen the good part of not tiring the world with
printed matter.

Here, then, Dyson would shut himself up with his
fancies, experimenting with words, and striving, as
his friend the recluse of Bayswater strove, with the
almost invincible problem of style, but always with a
fine confidence, extremely different from the chronic
depression of the realist. He had been almost con-
tinuously at work on some scheme that struck him
as well-nigh magical in its possibilities since the
night of his adventure w,ith the ingenious tenant of
the first floor in Abingdon Grove; and as he laid
down the pen with a glow of triumph, he reflected

184 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

that he had not viewed the streets for five days in
succession. With all the enthusiasm of his accom-
plished labor still working in his brain, he put away
his papers, and went out, pacing the pavement at
first in that rare mood of exultation which finds
in every stone upon the way the possibilities of a
masterpiece. It was growing late, and the autumn
evening was drawing to a close amidst veils of haze
and mist, and in the stilled air the voices, and the
roaring traffic, and incessant feet seemed, to Dyson
like the noise upon the stage when all the house
is silent. In the square, the leaves rippled down
as quick as summer rain, and the street beyond was
beginning to flare with the lights in the butcher's
shops and the vivid illumination of the green-
grocer. It was a Saturday night, and the swarm-
ing populations of the slums were turning out in
force; the battered women in rusty black had begun
to paw the lumps of cagmag, and others gloated
over unwholesome cabbages, and there was a brisk
demand for four-ale. Dyson passed through these
night-fires with some relief; he loved to meditate,
but his thoughts were not as De Quincey's after his
dose ; he cared not two straws whether onions were
dear or cheap, and would not have exulted if meat
had fallen to twopence a pound. Absorbed in the
wilderness of the tale he had been writing, weigh-
ing nicely the points of plot and construction,
relishing the recollection of this and that happy
phrase, and dreading failure here and there, he left
the rush and the whistle of tfce gas-flares behind him,
and began to touch upon pavements more deserted.
He had turned, without taking note, to the north-

STEANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 185

ward, and was passing through an ancient fallen
street, where now notices of floors and offices to let
hung out, but still about it there was the grace and
the stiffness of the Age of Wigs ; a broad roadway,
a broad pavement, and on each side a grave line of
houses with long and narrow windows flush with
the walls, all of mellowed brickwork. Dyson
walked with quick steps, as he resolved that short
work must be made of a certain episode; but he
was in that happy humor of invention, and another
chapter rose in the inner chamber of his brain,
and he dwelt on the circumstances he was to write
down with curious pleasure. It was charming to
have the quiet streets to walk in, and in his thought
he made a whole district the cabinet of his studies,
and vowed he would come again. Heedless of
his course, he -struck off to the east again, and
soon found himself involved in a squalid net-
work of gray two-storied houses, and then in the
waste void and elements of brick-work, the pas-
sages and unmade roads behind great factory walls,
encumbered with the refuse of the neighborhood,
forlorn, ill-lighted, and desperate. A brief turn,
and there rose before him the unexpected, a hill
suddenly lifted from the level ground, its steep
ascent marked by the lighted lamps, and eager as
an explorer Dyson found his way to the place,
wondering where his crooked paths had brought
him. Here all was again decorous, but hideous in
the extreme. The builder, some one lost in the
deep gloom of the early 'twenties, had conceived
the idea of twin villas in gray brick, shaped in a
manner to recall the outlines of the Parthenon, each

186 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

with its classic form broadly marked with raised
bands of stucco. The name of the street was all
strange, and for a further surprise, the top of the
hill was crowned with an irregular plot of grass
and fading trees, called a square, and here again
the Parthenon-motive had persisted. Beyond the
streets were curious, wild in their irregularities,
here a row of sordid, dingy dwellings, dirty and
disreputable in appearance, and there, without warn-
ing, stood a house gentpel and prim with wire blinds
and brazen knocker, as clean and trim as if it had
been the doctor's house in some benighted little
country town. These surprises and discoveries be-
gan to exhaust Dyson, and he hailed with delight
the blazing windows of a public-house, and went in
with the intention of testing the beverage provided
for the dwellers in this region, as remote as Libya
and Pamphylia and the parts about Mesopotamia.
The babble of voices from within warned him that
he was about to assist at the true parliament of
the London workman, and he looked about him for
that more retired entrance called private. When he
had settled himself on an exiguous bench, and had
ordered some beer, he began to listen to the jang-
ling talk in the public bar beyond ; it was a sense-
less argument, alternately furious and maudlin, with
appeals to Bill and Tom, and mediaeval survivals of
speech, words that Chaucer wrote belched out with
zeal and relish, and the din of pots jerked down arid
coppers rapped smartly on the zinc counter made a
thorough bass for it all. Dyson was calmly smok-
ing his pipe between the sips of beer, when an
indefinite looking figure slid rather than walked

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 187

into the compartment. The mart started violently
when he saw Dyson placidly sitting in the corner,
and glanced keenly about him. He seemed to be
on wires, controlled by some electric machine, for
he almost bolted out of the door when the barman
asked with what he could serve him, and his hand
shivered as he took the glass. Dyson inspected
him with a little curiosity; he was muffled up
almost to the lips, and a soft felt hat was drawn
down over his eyes; he looked as if he shrank from
every glance, and a more raucous voice suddenly
uplifted in the public bar seemed to find in him a
sympathy that made him shake and quiver like a
jelly. It was pitiable to see any one so thrilled
with nervousness, and Dyson was about to address
some trivial remark of casual inquiry to the man,
when another person came into the compartment,
and, laying a hand on his arm, muttered something
in an undertone, and vanished as he came. But
Dyson had recognized him as the smooth-tongued
and smooth-shaven Burton, who had displayed so
sumptuous a gift in lying; and yet he thought
little of it, for his whole faculty of observation was
absorbed in the lamentable and yet grotesque spec-
tacle before him. At the first touch of the hand on
his arm, the unfortunate man had wheeled round as
if spun on a pivot, and shrank back with a low,
piteous cry, as if some dumb beast were caught in
the toils. The blood fled away from the wretch's
face, and the skin became gray as if a shadow of
death had passed in the air and fallen on it, and
Dyson caught a choking whisper —

"Mr. Davies! For God's sake, have pity on me,

188 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

Mr. Davies. On my oath, I say — " and his voice
sank to silence as he heard the message, and strove
in vain to bite his lip, and summon up -to his aid
some tinge of manhood. He stood there a moment,
wavering as the leaves of an aspen, and then he
was gone out into the street, as Dyson thought
silently, with his doom upon his head. He had not
been gone a minute when it suddenly flashed into
Dyson's mind that he knew the man; it was un-
doubtedly the young man with spectacles for whom
so many ingenious persons were searching; the spec-
tacles indeed were missing, but the pale face, the
dark whiskers, and the timid glances were enough to
identify him. Dyson saw at once that by a succes-
sion of hazards he had unawares hit upon the scent
of some desperate conspiracy, wavering as the track
of a loathsome snake in and out of the highways
and byways of the London cosmos; the truth was
instantly pictured before him, and he divined that
all unconscious and unheeding he had been privileged
to see the shadows of hidden forms, chasing and
hurrying, and grasping and vanishing across the
bright curtain of common life, soundless and silent,
or only babbling fables and pretences. For him in
an instant the jargoning of voices, the garish splen-
dor, and all the vulgar tumult of the public-house
became part of magic; for here before his eyes a
scene in this grim mystery play had been enacted,
and he had seen human flesh grow gray with a
palsy of fear ; the very hell of cowardice and terror
had gaped wide within an arm's breadth. In the
midst of these reflections, the barman came up and
stared at him as if to hint that he had exhausted his

STRANGE OCCUERENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 189

right to take his ease, and Dyson bought another
lease of the seat by an order for more beer. As he
pondered the brief glimpse of tragedy, he recollected
that with his first start of haunted fear the young
man with whiskers had drawn his hand swiftly from
his great coat pocket, and that he had heard some-
thing fall to the ground; and pretending to have
dropped his pipe, Dyson began to grope in the cor-
ner, searching with his fingers. He touched some
thing, and drew it gently to him, and with one brief
glance, as he put it quietly in his pocket, he saw it
was a little old-fashioned note book, bound in faded
green morocco.

He drank down his beer at a gulp, and left the
place, overjoyed at his fortunate discovery, and busy
with conjecture as to the possible importance of the
find. By turns he dreaded to find perhaps mere
blank leaves, or the labored follies of a betting-
book, but the faded morocco cover seemed to promise
better things, and hint at mysteries. He piloted
himself with no little difficulty out of the sour and
squalid quarter he had entered with a light heart,
and emerging at Gray's Inn Eoad, struck off down
Guilford Street, and hastened home, only anxious
for a lighted candle and solitude.

Dyson sat down at his bureau, and placed the
little book before him; it was an effort to open the
leaves and dare disappointment. But in despera-
tion at last he laid his finger between the pages at
haphazard, and rejoiced to see a compact range of
writing with a margin, and as it chanced, three
words caught his glance, and stood out apart from
the mass. Dyson read:

190 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

THE GOLD TIBERIUS,

and his face flushed with fortune and the lust of
the hunter.

He turned at once to the first leaf of the pocket-
book, and proceeded to read with rapt interest the

HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH
SPECTACLES

Erom the filthy and obscure lodging, situated, I
verily believe, in one of the foulest slums of Clerk-
enwell, I indite this history of a life which, daily
threatened, cannot last for very much longer. Every
day, nay, every hour, I know too well my enemies
are drawing their nets closer about me ; even now,
I am condemned to be a close prisoner in my squalid
room, and I know that when I go out I shall go to
my destruction. This history, if it chance to fall
into good hands, may , perhaps, be of service in warn-
ing young men of the dangers and pitfalls that most
surely must accompany any deviation from the ways
of rectitude.

My name is Joseph Walters. When I came of
age I found myself in possession of a small but
sufficient income, and I determined that I would
devote my life to scholarship. I do not mean the
scholarship of these days; I had no intention of
associating myself with men whose lives are spent
in the unspeakably degrading occupation of "edit-
ing" classics, befouling the fair margins of the
fairest books with idle and superfluous annotation,

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 191

and doing their utmost to give a lasting disgust of
all that is beautiful. An abbey church turned to
the base use of a stable or a bake-house is a sorry
sight; but more pitiable still is a masterpiece splut-
tered over with the commentator's pen, and his
hideous mark "cf."

For my part I chose the glorious career of scholar
in its ancient sense; I longed to possess encyclo-
paedic learning, to grow old amongst books, to distil
day by day, and year after year, the inmost sweet-
ness of all worthy writings. I was not rich enough
to collect a library, and I was therefore forced to
betake myself to the Eeading-Eoom of the British
Museum.

O dim, far-lifted and mighty dome, Mecca of
many minds, mausoleum of many hopes, sad house
where all desires' fail. For there men enter in with
hearts uplifted, and dreaming minds, seeing in those
exalted stairs a ladder to fame, in that pompous
portico the gate of knowledge; and going in, find
but vain vanity, and all but in vain. There, when
the long streets are ringing, is silence, there eternal
twilight, and the odor of heaviness. But there the
blood flows thin and cold, and the brain burns
adust; there is the hunt of shadows, and the chase
of embattled phantoms; a striving against ghosts,
and a war that has no victory. 0 dome, tomb of the
quick; surely in thy galleries where no reverberant
voice can call, sighs whisper ever, and mutterings
of dead hopes; and there men's souls mount like
moths towards the flame, and fall scorched and
blackened beneath thee, 0 dim, far-lifted, and
mighty dome.

192 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

Bitterly do I now regret the day when I took my
place at a desk for the first time, and began my
studies. I had not been an habitue of the place
for many months, when I became acquainted with a
serene and benevolent gentleman, a man somewhat
past middle age, who nearly always occupied a desk
next to mine. In the Reading-Room it takes little
to make an acquaintance, a casual offer of assist-
ance, a hint as to the search in the catalogue, and
the ordinary politeness of men who constantly sit
near each other; it was thus I came to know the
man calling himself Dr. Lipsius. By degrees I
grew to look for his presence, and to miss him
when he was away, as was sometimes the case, and
so a friendship sprang up between us. His immense
range of learning was placed freely at my service ;
he would often astonish me by the way in which he
would sketch out in a few minutes the bibliography
of a given subject, and before long I had confided
to him my ambitions.

"Ah, "he said, "you should have been a German.
I was like that myself when I was a boy. It is a
wonderful resolve, an infinite career. 'I will know
all things ; ' yes, it is a device indeed. But it
means this — a life of labor without end, and a desire
unsatisfied at last. The scholar has to die, and die
saying, 'I know very little.' '•

Gradually, by speeches such as these, Lipsius
seduced me: he would praise the career, and at
the same time hint that it was as hopeless as the
search for the philosopher's stone, and so by artful
suggestions, insinuated with infinite address, he by
degrees succeeded in undermining all my principles.

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 193

"After all," lie used to say, "the greatest of all
sciences, the key to all knowledge, is the science
and art of pleasure. Eabelais was perhaps the
greatest of all the encyclopaedic scholars; and he, as
you know, wrote the most remarkable book that has
ever been written% And what does he teach men in
this book? Surely, the joy of living. I need not
remind you of the words, suppressed in most of the
editions, the key of all the Rabelaisian mythology,
of all the enigmas of his grand philosophy, Vivez
joyeux. There you have all his learning; his work
is the institutes of pleasure as the fine art; the
finest art there is; the art of all arts. Rabelais had
all science, but he had all life too. And we have
gone a long way since his time. You are enlightened,
I think; you do not consider all the petty rules and
by-laws that a corrupt society has made for its own
selfish convenience as the immutable decrees of the
eternal."

Such were the doctrines that he preached ; and it
was by such insidious arguments, line upon line,
here a little and there a little, that he at last suc-
ceeded in making me a man at war with the whole
social system. I used to long for some opportunity
to break the chains and to live a free life, to be my
own rule and measure. I viewed existence with the
eyes of a pagan, and Lipsius understood to perfec-
tion the art of stimulating the natural inclinations
of a young man hitherto a hermit. As I gazed up
at the great dome I saw it flushed with the flames
and colors of a world of enticement, unknown to
me, my imagination played me a thousand wanton
tricks, and the forbidden drew me as surely as a

13

194 THE THREE IMPOSTOES.

loadstone draws on iron. At last my resolution
was taken, and I boldly asked Lipsius to be my
guide.

He told me to leave the Museum at my usual
hour, half past four, to walk slowly along the
northern pavement of Great Russell Street, and to
wait at the corner of the street till I was addressed,
and then to obey in all things the instructions of
the person who came up to me. I carried out these
directions, and stood at the corner looking about me
anxiously, my heart beating fast, and my breath
coming in gasps. I waited there for some time,
and had begun to fear I had been made the object
of a joke, when I suddenly became conscious of a
gentleman who was looking at me with evident
amusement from the opposite pavement of Totten-
ham Court Road. He came over, and raising his
hat, politely begged me to follow him, and I did so
without a word, wondering where we were going,
and what was to happen. I was taken to a house
of quiet and respectable aspect in a street lying to
the north of Oxford Street, and my guide rang the
bell, and a servant showed us into a large room,
quietly furnished, on the ground floor. We sat there
in silence for some time, and I noticed that the fur-
niture, though unpretending, was extremely valu-
able. There were large oak-presses, two book-cases
of extreme elegance, and in one corner a carved
chest which must have been mediaeval. Presently
Dr. Lipsius came in and welcomed me with his
usual manner, and after some desultory conversa-
tion, my guide left the room. Then an elderly man
dropped in and began talking to Lipsius; and from

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 195

their conversation I understood that my friend was
a dealer in antiques; they spoke of the Hittite
seal, and of the prospects of further discoveries, and
later, when two or three more persons had joined us,
there was an argument as to the possibility of a sys-
tematic exploration of the pre-celtic monuments in
England. I was, in fact, present at an archaeolog-
ical reception of an informal kind; and at nine
o'clock, when the antiquaries were gone, I stared
at Lipsius in a manner that showed I was puzzled,
and sought an explanation.

"Now," he said, "we will go upstairs."
As we passed up the stairs, Lipsius lighting the
way with a hand-lamp, I heard the sound of a jar-
ring lock and bolts and bars shot on at the front
door. My guide drew back a baize door, and we
went down a passage, and I began to hear odd
sounds, a noise of curious mirth, and then he
pushed me through a second door, and my initia-
tion began. I cannot write down what I witnessed
that night; I cannot bear to recall what went on in
those secret rooms fast shuttered and curtained so
that no light should escape into the quiet street;
they gave me red wine to drink, and a woman told
me as I sipped it that it was wine of the Red Jar
that Avallaunius had made. Another asked me how
I liked the Wine of the Fauns, and I heard a dozen
fantastic names, while the stuff boiled in my veins,
and stirred, I think, something that had slept within
me from the moment I was born. It seemed as if
my self-consciousness deserted me; I was no longer
a thinking agent, but at once subject and object. I
mingled in the horrible sport and watched the mys-

196 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

tery of the Greek groves and fountains enacted
before me, saw the reeling dance, and heard the
music calling as I sat beside my mate, and yet I
was outside it all, and viewed my own part an idle
spectator. Thus with strange rites they made me
drink the cup, and when I woke up in the morning
I was one of them, and had sworn to be faithful.
At first I was shown the enticing side of things. I
was bidden to enjoy myself and care for nothing
but pleasure, and Lipsius himself indicated to me
as the acutest enjoyment the spectacle of the terrors
of the unfortunate persons who were from time to
time decoyed into the evil house. But after a time
it was pointed out to me that I must take my share
in the work, and so I found myself compelled to be
in my turn a seducer ; and thus it is on my con-
science that I have led many to the depths of the
pit.

One day Lipsius summoned me to his private
room, and told me that he had a difficult task to
give me. He unlocked a drawer, and gave me a
sheet of type-written paper, and bade me read it.
It was without place, or date, or signature, and ran
as follows: —

"Mr. James Headley, F. S. A., will receive from
his agent in Armenia, on the 12th inst., a unique
coin, the gold Tiberius. It bears on the reverse a
faun, with the legend VICTORIA. It is believed that
this coin is of immense value. Mr. Headley will
come up to town to show the coin to his friend, Pro-
fessor Memys, of Chenies Street, Oxford Street, on
some date between the 13th and the 18th."

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLEKKENWELL. 197

Dr. Lipsius chuckled at my face of blank surprise
when I laid down this singular communication.

"You will have a good chance of showing your
discretion," he saic}. "This is not a common case;
it requires great management and infinite tact. I
am sure I wish I had a Panurge in my service, but
we will see what you can do."

"But is it not a joke?" I asked him. "How can
you know, or rather how can this correspondent of
yours know that a coin has been despatched from
Armenia to Mr. Headley? And how is it possible
to fix the period in which Mr. Headley will take it
into his head to come up to town? It seems to me
a lot of guess work."

"My dear Mr. Walters," he replied; "we do not
deal in guess work here. It would bore you if I
went into all these little details, the cogs and wheels,
if I may say so, which move the machine. Don't
you think it is much more amusing to sit in front
of the house and be astonished, than to be behind
the scenes and see the mechanism? Better tremble
at the thunder, believe me, than see the man rolling
the cannon ball. But, after all, you needn't bother
about the how and why; you have your share to
do. Of course, I shall give you full instructions,
but a great deal depends on the way the thing is car-
ried out. I have often heard very young men main-
tain that style is everything in literature, and I can
assure you that the same maxim holds good in our
far more delicate profession. With us style is abso-
lutely everything, and that is why we have friends
like yourself."

I went away in some perturbation; he had no doubt

198 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

designedly left everything in mystery, and I did not
know what part I should have to play. Though I
had assisted at scenes of hideous revelry, I was not
yet dead to all echo of human feeling, and I trembled
lest I should receive the order to be Mr. Headley's
executioner.

A week later, it was on the sixteenth of the
month, Dr. Lipsius made me a sign to come into
his room.

"It is for to-night," he began. "Please to attend
carefully to what I am going to say, Mr. Walters,
and on peril of your life, for it is a dangerous
matter, — on peril of your life I say, follow these
instructions to the letter. You understand? Well,
to-night at about half-past seven you will stroll
quietly up the Hampstead Road till you come to
Vincent Street. Turn down here and walk along,
taking the third turning to your right, which is
Lambert Terrace. Then follow the terrace, cross
the road, and go along Hertford Street, and so into
Lillington Square. The second turning you will
come to in the square is called Sheen Street; but
in reality it is more a passage between blank walls
than a street. Whatever you do, take care to be at
the corner of this street at eight o'clock precisely.
You will walk along it, and just at the bend, where
you lose sight of the square, you will find an old
gentleman with white beard and whiskers. He will
in all probability be abusing a cabman for having
brought him to Sheen Street instead of Chenies
Street. You will go up to him quietly and offer
your services ; he will tell you where he wants to
go, and you will be so courteous as to offer to show

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 199

him the way. I may say that Professor Memys
moved into Chenies Street a month ago; thus Mr.
Headley has never been to see him there, and more-
over he is very short-sighted, and knows little of
the topography of London. Indeed he has quite
lived the life of a learned hermit at Audley Hall.

" Well, need I say more to a man of your intelli-
gence? You will bring him to this house; he will
ring the bell, and a servant in quiet livery will let
him in. Then your work will be done, and I am
sure done well. You will leave Mr. Headley at the
door, and simply continue your walk, and I shall
hope to see you the next day. I really don't think
there is anything more I can tell you."

These minute instructions I took care to carry
out to the letter. I confess that I walked up the
Tottenham Court Road by no means blindly, but
with an uneasy sense that I was coming to a deci-
sive point in my life. The noise and rumor of the
crowded pavements were to me but dumb-show. I
revolved again and again in ceaseless iteration the
task that had been laid on me, and I questioned
myself as to the possible results. As I got near the
point of turning, I asked myself whether danger
were not about my steps; the cold thought struck
me that I was suspected and observed, and every
chance foot-passenger who gave me a second glance
seemed to me an officer of police. My time was
running out, the sky had darkened, and I hesitated,
half resolved to go no farther, but to abandon
Lipsius and his friends forever. I had almost
determined to take this course, when the convic-
tion suddenly came to me that the whole thing was

200 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

a gigantic joke, a fabrication of rank improbability.
Who could have procured the information about the
Armenian agent, I asked myself. By what means
could Lipsius have known the particular day, and
the very train that Mr. Headley was to take? How
engage him to enter one special cab amongst the
dozens waiting at Paddington? I vowed it a mere
Milesian tale, and went forward merrily, and turned
down Vincent Street, and threaded out the route
that Lipsius had so carefully impressed upon me.
The various streets he had named were all places
of silence and an oppressive cheap gentility; it
was dark, and I felt alone in the musty squares and
crescents, where people pattered by at intervals,
and the shadows were growing blacker. I entered
Sheen Street, and found it, as Lipsius had said,
more a passage than a street ; it was a by-way, on
one side a low wall and neglected gardens and
grim backs of a line of houses, and on the other a
timber yard. I turned the comer, and lost sight of
the square, and then to my astonishment I saw the
scene of which I had been told. A hansom cab had
come to a stop beside the pavement, and an old
man carrying a handbag was fiercely abusing the
cabman, who sat on his perch the image of bewilder-
ment.

• "Yes, but I'm sure you said Sheen Street, and
that's where I brought you," I heard him saying,
as I came up, and the old gentleman boiled in a
fury, and threatened police and suits at law.

The sight gave me a shock ; and in an instant I
resolved to go through with it. I strolled on, and
without noticing the cabman, lifted my hat politely
to old Mr. Headley.

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 201

"Pardon me, sir," I said, "but is there any diffi-
culty? I see you are a traveller; perhaps the cab-
man has made a mistake. Can I direct you? "

The old fellow turned to me, and I noticed that
he snarled and showed his teeth like an ill-tempered
cur as he spoke.

"This drunken fool has brought me here," he
said. "I told him to drive to Chenies Street, and
he brings me to this infernal place. I won't pay
him a farthing, and I meant to have given him a
handsome sum. I am going to call for the police
and give him in charge."

At this threat the cabman seemed to take alarm.
He glanced round as if to make sure that no police-
man was in sight and drove off grumbling loudly,
and Mr. Headley grinned savagely with satisfaction
at having saved his fare, and put back one and
sixpence into his pocket, the " handsome sum " the
cabman had lost.

"My dear sir," I said, "I am afraid this piece of
stupidity has annoyed you a great deal. It is a
long way to Chenies Street, and you will have some
difficulty in finding the place unless you know
London pretty well."

"I know it very little," he replied. "I never
come up except on important business, and I 've
never been to Chenies Street in my life."

"Really? I should be happy to show you the
way. I have been for a stroll, and it will not at all
inconvenience me to take you to your destination."

"I want to go to Professor Memys, at number 15.
It 's most annoying to me. I 'm short-sighted, and
I can never make out the numbers on the doors."

202 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

"This way if you please," I said, and we set out.

I did not find Mr. Headley an agreeable man;
indeed, he grumbled the whole way. He informed
me of his name, and I took care to say, "The well-
known antiquary?" and thenceforth I was com-
pelled to listen to the history of his complicated
squabbles with publishers, who had treated him, as
he said, disgracefully. The man was a chapter in
the Irritability of Authors. He told me that he had
been on the point of making the fortune of several
firms, but had been compelled to abandon the design
owing to their rank ingratitude. Besides these
ancient histories of wrong, and the more recent mis-
adventure of the cabman, he had another grievous
complaint to make. As he came along in the train,
he had been sharpening a pencil, and the sudden
jolt of the engine as it drew up at a station had driven
the penknife against his face, inflicting a small
triangular wound just on the cheek-bone, which he
showed me. He denounced the railway company,
and heaped imprecations on the head of the driver,
and talked of claiming damages. Thus he grumbled
all the way, not noticing in the least where he was
going, and so unamiable did his conduct appear to me
that I began to enjoy the trick I was playing on him.

Nevertheless my heart beat a little faster as we
turned into the street where Lipsius was waiting.
A thousand accidents, I thought, might happen.
Some chance might bring one of Headley's friends
to meet us; perhaps, though he knew not Chenies
Street, he might know the street where I was tak-
ing him ; in spite of his short-sight he might pos-
sibly make out the number, or in a sudden fit of

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 203

suspicion he might make an inquiry of the police-
man at the corner. Thus every step upon the pave-
ment, as we drew nearer to the goal, was to me a
pang and a terror, and every approaching passenger
carried a certain threat of danger. I gulped down
my excitement with an effort, and made shift to say
pretty quietly : —

" No. 15, 1 think you said? That is the third house
from this. If you will allow me, I will leave you
now; I have been delayed a little, and my way lies
on the other side of Tottenham Court Road."

He snarled out some kind of thanks, and I turned
my back and walked swiftly in the opposite direc-
tion. A minute or two later, I looked round and
saw Mr. Headley standing on the doorstep, and then
the door opened and he went in. For my part I
gave a sigh of relief, and hastened to get away from
the neighborhood and endeavored to enjoy myself
in merry company.

The whole of the next day I kept away from
Lipsius. I felt anxious, but I did^ not know what
had happened or what was happening, and a reason-
able regard for my own safety told me that I should
do well to remain quietly at home. My curiosity,
however, to learn the end of the odd drama in which
I had played a part stung me to the quick, and late
in the evening I made up my mind to go and see
how events had turned out. Lipsius nodded when I
came in, and asked me if I could give him five
minutes' talk. We went into his room, and he
began to walk up and down, and 1 sat waiting for
him to speak.

"My dear Mr. Walters," he said at length, "I

204 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

congratulate you warmly. Your work was done in
the most thorough and artistic manner. You will
go far. Look."

He went to his escritoire and pressed a secret
spring, and a drawer flew out, and he laid something
on the table. It was a gold coin, and I took it up
and examined it eagerly, and read the legend about
the figure of the faun.

"Victoria," I said, smiling.

"Yes, it was a great capture, " which we owe to
you. I had great difficulty in persuading Mr.
Headley that a little mistake had been made; that
was how I put it. He was very disagreeable, and
indeed ungentlemanly about it; didn't he strike you
as a very cross old man?"

I held the coin, admiring the choice and rare
design, clear cut as if from the mint; and I thought
the fine gold glowed and burned like a lamp.

"And what finally became of Mr. Headley?" I
said at last.

Lipsius smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"What on earth does it matter?" he said. "He
might be here, or there, or anywhere; but what
possible consequence could it be? Besides, your
question rather surprises me. You are an intelli-
gent man, Mr. Walters. Just think it over, and
I'm sure you won't repeat the question."

"My dear sir," I said, "I hardly think you are
treating me fairly. You have paid me some hand-
some compliments on my share in the capture, and
I naturally wish to know how the matter ended.
From what I sa'w of Mr. Headley, I should think
you must have had some difficulty with him."

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 205

He gave me no answer for the moment, but began
again to walk up and down the room, apparently
absorbed in thought.

"Well," he said at last, "I suppose there is
something in what you say. We are certainly
indebted to you. I have said, that I have a high
opinion of your intelligence, Mr. Walters. Just-
look here, will you."

He opened a door communicating with another
room and pointed.

There was a great box lying on the floor; a queer
coffin-shaped thing. I looked at it and saw it was
a mummy case like those in the British Museum,
vividly painted in the brilliant Egyptian colors,
with I knew not what proclamation of dignity or
hopes of life immortal. The mummy, swathed
about in the robes of death, was lying within, and
the face had been uncovered.

"You are going to send this away?" I said, for-
getting the question I had put.

"Yes; I have an order from a local museum.
Look a little more closely, Mr. Walters."

Puzzled by his manner, I peered into the face,
while he held up the lamp. The flesh was black
with the passing of the centuries; but as I looked I
saw upon the right cheek-bone a small triangular
scar, and the secret of the mummy flashed upon me.
I was looking at the dead body of the man whom
I had decoyed into that house.

There was no thought or design of action in my
mind. I held the accursed coin in my hand, burning
me with a foretaste of hell,»and I fled as I would have
fled from pestilence and death , and dashed into the

206 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

street in blind horror, not knowing where I went.
I felt the gold coin grasped in my clenched fist, and
threw it away, I knew not where, and ran on and on
through by-streets and dark ways, till at last I issued
out into a crowded thoroughfare, and checked myself.
Then, as consciousness returned, I realized my in-
stant peril, and understood what would happen if I
fell into the hands of Lipsius. I knew that I had
put forth my finger to thwart a relentless mechanism
rather than a man; my recent adventure with the
unfortunate Mr. Headley had taught me that Lipsius
had agents in all quarters, and I foresaw that if I
fell into his hands, he would remain true to his
doctrine of style, and cause me to die a death of
some horrible and ingeiiious torture. I bent my
whole mind to the task of outwitting him and his
emissaries, three of whom I knew to have proved
their ability for tracking down persons who for
various reasons preferred to remain obscure. These
servants of Lipsius were two men and a woman, and
the woman was incomparably the most subtle and
the most deadly. Yet I considered that I too had
some portion of craft, and I took my resolve. Since
then I have matched myself day by day and hour
by hour against the ingenuity of Lipsius and his
myrmidons. For a time I was successful; though
they beat furiously after me in the covert of Lon-
don, I remained perdu, and watched with some
amusement their frantic efforts to recover the scent
lost in two or three minutes. Every lure and wile
was put forth to entice me from my hiding-place.
I was informed by the medium of the public prints
that what I hail taken had been recovered, and

STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL. 207

meetings were proposed in which I might hope to
gain a great deal without the slightest risk. I
laughed at their endeavors, and began a little to
despise the organization I had so dreaded, and ven-
tured more abroad. Not once or twice, but several
times, I recognized the two men who were charged
with my capture, and I succeeded in eluding them
easily at close quarters; and a little hastily I
decided that I had nothing to dread, and that my
craft was greater than theirs. But in the mean
while, while I congratulated myself on my cunning,
the third of Lipsius's emissaries was 'weaving her
nets, and in an evil hour I paid a visit to an old
friend, a literary man named Russell, who lived in
a quiet street in Bayswater. The woman, as I
found out too late, a day or two ago, occupied rooms
in the same house, and I was followed and tracked
down. Too late, as I have said, I recognized that I
had made a fatal mistake, and that I was besieged.
Sooner or later I shall find myself in the power of
an enemy without pity; and so surely as I leave
this house I shall go to receive doom. I hardly
dare to guess how it will at last fall upon me. My
imagination, always a vivid one, paints to me
appalling pictures of the unspeakable torture which
I shall probably endure; and I know that I shall
die with Lipsius standing near and gloating over
the refinements of my suffering and my shame.

Hours, nay, minutes, have become very precious to
me. I sometimes pause in the midst of anticipating
my tortures, to wonder whether even now I cannot hit
upon some supreme stroke, some design of infinite
subtlety, to free myself from the toils. But I find

208 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

that the faculty of combination has left me. I am
as the scholar in the old myth, deserted by the
power which has helped me hitherto. I do not
know when the supreme moment will come, but
sooner or later it is inevitable, and before long I
shall receive sentence, and from the sentence to
execution will not be long.

I cannot remain here a prisoner any longer. I
shall go out to-night when the streets are full of
crowds and clamors, and make a last effort to
escape.

It was with profound astonishment that Dyson
closed the little book, and thought of the strange
series of incidents which had brought him into touch
with the plots and counterplots connected with the
Gold Tiberius. He had bestowed the coin carefully
away, and he shuddered at the bare possibility of
its place of deposit becoming known to the evil
band who seemed to possess such extraordinary
sources of information.

It had grown late while he read , and he put the
pocket-book away, hoping with all his heart that
the unhappy Walters might even at the eleventh
hour escape the doom he dreaded.

ADVENTURE OF THE DE-
SERTED RESIDENCE.

"A WONDERFUL story, as you say; an extraordi-
nary sequence and play of coincidence. I confess
that your expressions when you first showed me the
Gold Tiberius were not exaggerated. But do you
think that Walters has really some fearful fate to
dread?"

"I cannot say. Who can presume to predict
events when life itself puts on the robe of coinci-
dence and plays at drama? Perhaps we have not
yet reached the last chapter in the queer story.
But, look, we are drawing near to the verge of
London ; there are gaps, you see, in the serried ranks
of brick, and a vision of green fields beyond."

Dyson had persuaded the ingenious Mr. Phillipps
to accompany him on one of those aimless walks to
which he was himself so addicted. Starting from
the very heart of London, they had made their way
westward through the stony avenues, and were now
just emerging from the red lines of an extreme
suburb, and presently the half-finished road ended,
a quiet lane began, and they were beneath the
shade of elm-trees. The yellow autumn sunlight
that had lit up the bare distance of the suburban

' 14

210 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

street now filtered down through the boughs of the
trees and shone on the glowing carpet of fallen
leaves, and the pools of rain glittered and shot back
the gleam of light. Over all the broad pastures
there was peace and the happy rest of autumn be-
fore the great winds begin, and afar off, London
lay all vague and immense amidst the veiling mist;
here and there a distant window catching the sun
and kindling with fire, and a spire gleaming high,
and below the streets in shadow, and the turmoil
of life. Dyson and Phillipps walked on in silence
beneath the high hedges, till at a turn of the lane
they saw a mouldering and ancient gate standing
open, and the prospect of a house at the end of a
moss-grown carriage drive.

"There is a survival for you," said Dyson; "it
has come to its last days, I imagine. Look how
the laurels have grown gaunt, and weedy, and black,
and bare, beneath; look at the house, covered with
yellow wash and patched with green damp. Why,
the very notice-board which informs all and sin-
gular that the place is to be let has cracked and half
fallen."

"Suppose we go in and see it," said Phillipps.
"I don't think there is anybody about."

They turned up the drive, and walked slowly
towards this remnant of old days. It was a large
straggling house, with curved wings at either end,
and behind a series of irregular roofs and projec-
tions, showing that the place had been added to at
divers dates; the two wings were roofed in cupola
fashion, and at one side, as they came nearer, they
could see a stable-yard, and a clock turret with a

THE DESERTED RESIDENCE. 211

bell, and the dark masses of gloomy cedars. Amidst
all the lineaments of dissolution, there was but
one note of contrast: the sun was setting beyond
the elm-trees, and all the west and the south were
in flames, and on the upper windows of the house the
glow shone reflected, and it seemed as if blood and
fire were mingled. Before the yellow front of the
mansion, stained, as Dyson had remarked, with gan-
grenous patches, green and blackening, stretched
what once had been, no doubt, a well-kept lawn,
but it was now rough and ragged, and nettles
and great docks, and all manner of coarse weeds,
struggled in the places of the flower-beds. The
urns had fallen from their pillars beside the walk,
and lay broken in shards upon the ground, and
everywhere from grass-plot and path a fungoid
growth had sprung up and multiplied, and lay dank
and slimy like a festering sore upon the earth. In
the middle of the rank grass of the lawn was a des-
olate fountain; the rim of the basin was crumbling
and pulverized with decay, and within, the water
stood stagnant, with green scum for the lilies that
had once bloomed there; and rust had eaten into
the bronze flesh of the Triton that stood in the
middle, and the conch-shell he held was broken.

"Here," said Dyson, "one might moralize over
decay and death. Here all the stage is decked out
with the symbols of dissolution ; the cedarn gloom
and twilight hangs heavy around us, and everywhere
within the pale dankriess has found a harbor, and
the very air is changed and brought to accord with
the scene. To me, I confess, this deserted house
is as moral as a graveyard, and I find something

212 THE THREE IMPOSTORS.

sublime in that lonely Triton, deserted in the midst
of his water-pool. He is the last of the gods; they
have left him, and he remembers the sound of water
falling on water, and the days that were sweet."

"I like your reflections extremely," said Phil-
lipps, "but I may mention that the door of the
house is open."

"Let us go in then."

The door was just ajar, and they passed into the
mouldy hall, and looked in at a room on one side.
It was a large room, going far back, and the rich
old red flock paper was peeling from the walls in
long strips, and blackened with vague patches of
rising damp; the ancient clay, the dank reeking
earth rising up again, and subduing all the work
of men's hands after the conquest of many years.
And the floor was thick with the dust of decay, and
the painted ceiling fading from all gay colors and
light fancies of cupids in a career, and disfigured
with sores of dampness, seemed transmuted into
other work. No longer the amorini chased one
another pleasantly, with limbs that sought not to
advance, and hands that merely simulated the act
of grasping at the wreathed flowers, but it appeared
some savage burlesque of the old careless world and
of its cherished conventions, and the dance of the
loves had become a dance of Death: black pustules
and festering sores swelled and clustered on fair
limbs, and smiling faces showed corruption, and
the fairy blood had boiled with the germs of foul
disease; it was a parable of the leaven working,
and worms devouring for a banquet the heart of the
rose.

THE DESERTED RESIDENCE. 213

Strangely, under the painted ceiling, against the
decaying walls, two old chairs still stood alone, the
sole furniture of the empty place. High -backed,
with curving arms and twisted legs, covered with
faded gold leaf, and upholstered in tattered damask,
they too were a part of the symbolism, and struck
Dyson with surprise. "What have we here?" he
said. "Who has sat in these- chairs? Who, clad in
peach-bloom satin, with lace ruffles and diamond
buckles, all golden, a conte fleurettes to his com-
panion? Phillipps, we are in another age. I wish
I had some snuff to offer you, but failing that,
I beg to offer you a seat, and we will sit and
smoke tobacco. A horrid practice, but I am no
pedant."

They sat down on the queer old chairs, and looked
out of the dim and grimy panes to the ruined lawn,
and the fallen urns, and the deserted Triton.

Presently Dyson ceased his imitation of eigh-
teenth century airs; he no longer pulled forward
imaginary ruffles, or tapped a ghostly snuff-box.

"It's a foolish fancy," he said at last, "but I
keep thinking I hear a noise like some one groan-
ing. Listen; no, I can't hear it now. There it is
again! Did you notice it, Phillipps?"

"No, I can't say I heard anything. But I believe
that old places like this are like shells from the
shore, ever echoing with noises. The old beams,
mouldering piecemeal, yield a little and groan, and
such a house as this I can fancy all resonant at
night with voices, the voices of matter so slowly
and so surely transformed into other shapes; the
voice of the worm that gnaws at last the very heart

214 THE THKEE IMPOSTORS.

of the oak; the voice of stone grinding on stone,
and the voice of the conquest of time."

They sat still in the old arm-chairs and grew
graver in the musty ancient air, — the air of a
hundred years ago.

"I don't like the place," said Phillipps, after a
long pause. " To me it seems as if there were a
sickly, unwholesome smell about it, a smell of
something burning."

"You are right; there is an evil odor here. I
wonder what it is! Hark! Did you hear that?"

A hollow sound, a noise of infinite sadness and
infinite pain broke in upon the silence; and the two
men looked fearfully at one another, horror and the
sense of unknown things glimmering in their eyes.

"Come," said Dyson, "we must see into this,"
and they went into the hall and listened in the
silence.

"Do you know," said Phillipps, "it seems absurd,
but I could almost fancy that the smell is that of
burning flesh."

They went up the hollow-sounding stairs, and the
odor became thick and noisome, stifling the breath ;
and a vapor, sickening as the smell of the chamber
of death, choked them. A door was open and they
entered the large upper room, and clung hard to one
another, shuddering at the sight they saw.

A naked man was lying on the floor, his arms
and legs stretched wide apart, and bound to pegs
that had been hammered into the boards. The
body was torn and mutilated in the most hideous
fashion, scarred with the marks of red-hot irons,
a shameful ruin of the human shape. But upon the

THE DESERTED RESIDENCE. 215

middle of the body a fire of coals was smouldering ;
the flesh had been burned through. The man was
dead, but the smoke of his torment mounted still,
a black vapor.

" The young man with spectacles ," said Mr. Dyson.

THE END.

THE KEYNOTES SERIES.

1 6mo. Cloth. Each volume with a Titlepage and
Cover Design.

By AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Price .... $1.00.

I. KEYNOTES. By GEORGE EGERTON.
II. THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR.

III. POOR FOLK. By FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY. Translated

from the Russian by LENA MILMAN. With an Introduc-
tion by GEORGE MOORE.

IV. A CHILD OF THE AGE. By FRANCIS ADAMS.

V. THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.

By ARTHUR MACHEN.

VI. DISCORDS. By GEORGE EGERTON.
VII. PRINCE ZALESKI. By M. P. SHIEL.
VIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID. By GRANT ALLEN.
IX, WOMEN'S TRAGEDIES. By H. D. LOWRY.

X. GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES. By HENRY
HARLAND.

XI. AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES. By

H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON.

XII. MONOCHROMES. By ELLA D'ARCY.

XIII. AT THE RELTON ARMS. By EVELYN SHARP.

XIV. THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. By GERTRUDE Dix.
XV. THE MIRROR OF MUSIC. By STANLEY V. MAKOWER.

XVI. YELLOW AND WHITE. By W. CARLTON DAWE.

XVII. THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. By FIONA MACLEOD.

XVIII. THE THREE IMPOSTORS. By ARTHUR MACHEN.

Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price ',
by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.

John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London, W.

KEYNOTES.

3 Volume of

By GEORGE EGERTON. With titlepage by AUBREY
BEARDSLEY. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

Not since "The Story of an African Farm" was written has any woman de-
livered herself of so strong, so forcible a book. — Queen.

Knotty questions in sex problems are dealt with in these brief sketches. They
are treated boldly, fearlessly, perhaps we may say forcefully, with a deep plunge
into the realities of life. The colors are laid in masses on the canvas, while
passions, temperaments, and sudden, subtle analyses take form under the quick,
sharp stroke. Though they contain a vein of coarseness and touch slightly upon
tabooed subjects, they evidence power and thought. — Public Opinion.

Indeed, we do not hesitate to say that " Keynotes " is the strongest volume
of short stories that the year has produced. Further, we would wager a good
deal, were it necessary, that George Egerton is a nom-de-plume, and of a woman,
too. Why is it that so many women hide beneath a man's name when they enter
the field of authorship? And in this case it seems doubly foolish, the work is so
intensely strong. ...

The chief characters of these stories are women, and women drawn as only a
woman can draw word-pictures of her own sex. The subtlety of analysis is
wonderful, direct in its effectiveness, unerring in its truth, and stirring in its reveal-
ing power. Truly, no one but a woman could thus throw the light of revelation
upon her own sex. Man does not understand woman as does the author of
"Keynotes."

The vitality of the stories, too, is remarkable. Life, very real life, is pictured ;
life full of joys and sorrows, happinesses and heartbreaks, courage and self-sacrifice ;
of self-abnegation, of struggle, of victory. The characters are intense, yet not
overdrawn ; the experiences are dramatic, in one sense or another, and yet are
never hyper-emotional. And all is told with a power of concentration that is
simply astonishing. A sentence does duty for a chapter, a paragraph for a picture
of years of experience.

Indeed, for vigor, originality, forcefulness of expression, and completeness of
character presentation, " Keynotes" surpasses any recent volume of short fiction
that we can recall. — Times, Boston.

It brings a new quality and a striking new force into the literature of the
hour. — The Speaker.

The mind that conceived " Keynotes " is so strong and original that one will
look with deep interest for the successors of this first book, at once powerful and
appealingly feminine. — Irish Independent.

Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt
of price by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.

THE DANCING FAUN

BY FLORENCE FARR.

With Title-page and Cover "Design by Aubrey Beardsley,.
16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.OO.

We welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Farr as one of the deftest that
fias been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written the clererest and the
most cynical sensation story of the season. — Liverpool Daily Post.

Slight as it is, the story is, in its way, strong. — Literary W 'arid.

Full of bright paradox, and paradox which is no mere topsy-turvy play upon
words, but the product of serious thinking upon life. One of the cleverest of
recent novels. — Star.

It is full of epigrammatic effects, and it has a certain thread of pathos calcu-
lated to win our spmpathy. — Queen.

The story is subtle and psychological after the fashion of modern psychology ;
it is undeniably clever and smartly written. — Gentlewoman.

No one can deny its freshness and wit. Indeed there are things in it here and
there which John Oliver Hobbes herself might have signed without loss of repu-
tation. — IV oman.

There is a lurid power in the very unreality of the story. One does not quite
understand how Lady Geraldine worked herself up to shooting her lover ; but
when she has done it, the description of what passes through her mind is
magnificent. — Athenaeum.

Written by an obviously clever woman. — Black and White.

Miss Farr has talent. "The Dancing Faun " contains writing that is distinc-
tively good. Doubtless it is only a prelude to something much stronger. —
A cademy.

As a work of art, the book has the merit of brevity and smart writing, while
the denouement is skilfully prepared, and comes as a surprise If the book had
been intended as a satire on the " new woman " sort of literature, it would have
been most brilliant ; but assuming it to be written in earnest, we can heartily
praise the form of its construction without agreeing with the sentiments expressed.
St. Jameis Gazette.

Shows considerable power and aptitude. — Saturday Review.

Miss Farr is a clever writer whose apprenticeship at playwriting can easily be
detected in the epigrammatic conversations with which this book is filled, and
whose characters expound a philosophy of life which strongly recalls Oscar
Wilde's later interpretations. . . . The theme of the tale is heredity developed
in a m6st unpleasant manner. The leading idea that daughters inherit the father's
qualities, good or evil, while sons resemble their mother, is well sustained. —
Home Journal.

Sold everywhere. Postpaid by publishers.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON,

POOR FOLK.

Translated from the Russian of FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY, by
LENA MILMAN, with decorative titlepage and a criti-
cal introduction by GEORGE MOORE. American
Copyright edition.

16 mo. Cloth. $1.00.

A capable critic writes : " One of the most beautiful, touching stories I have
read. The character of the old clerk is a masterpiece, a kind of Russian Charles
Lamb. He reminds me, too, of Anatole France's ' Sylvestre Bonnard,' but it
is a more poignant, moving figure. How wonderfully, too, the sad little strokes
of humor are blended into the pathos in his characterization, and how fascinating
all the naive self-revelations of his poverty become, — all his many ups and downs
and hopes and fears. His unsuccessful visit to the money-lender, his despair at the
office, unexpectedly ending in a sudden burst of good fortune, the final despair-
ing cry of his love for Varvara, — these hold one breathless One can hardly
read them without tears. . . . But there is no need to say all that could be said
about the book. It is enough to say that it is over powerful and beautiful."

We are glad to welcome a good translation of the Russian Dostoievsky's
story " Poor Folk," Englished by Lena Milman. It is a tale of unrequited love,
conducted in the form of letters written between a poor clerk and his girl cousin
whom he devotedly loves, and who finally leaves him to marry a man not admir-
able in character who, the reader feels, will not make her happy. The pathos of
the book centres in the clerk, Makar's, unselfish affection and his heart-break at
being left lonesome by his charming kinswoman whose epistles have been his one
solace. In the conductment of the story, realistic sketches of middle class Rus-
sian life are given, heightening the effect of the denoument. George Moore writes
a sparkling introduction to the book. — Hartford Courant.

Dostoievsky is a great artist. "Poor Folk" is a great novel. — Boston
Advertiser.

It is a most beautiful and touching story, and will linger in the mind long
after the book is closed. The pathos is blended with touching bits of humor,
that are even pathetic in themselves. — Boston Times.

Notwithstanding that "Poor Folk" is told in that most exasperating and
entirely unreal style — by letters— it is complete in sequence, and the interest
does not flag as the various phases in the sordid life of the two characters are
developed. The theme is intensely pathetic and truly human, while its treat-
ment is exceedingly artistic. The translator, Lena Milman, seems to have well
Deserved the spirit of the original — Cambridge Tribune.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

' BOSTON, MASS

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

A CHILD OF THE AGE

a Nobel

BY FRANCIS ADAMS

(KEYNOTES SERIES.)

With titlepage by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. • i6mo. Cloth.
Price, $1.00.

This story by Francis Adams was originally published under the title of
"Leicester, an Autobiography," in 1884, when the author was only twenty-two years
of age. That would make him thirty-two years old now, if he were still living. He
was but eighteen years old when it was first drafted by him. Sometime after publica-
tion, he revised the work, and in its present form it is now published again, practi,
cally a posthumous production. We can with truthfulness characterize it as a tale of
fresh originality, deep spiritual meaning, and exceptional power. It fairly buds,
blossoms, and fruits with suggestions that search the human spirit through. No
similar production has come from the hand of any author in our time. That Francis
Adams would have carved out a remarkable career for himself had he continued to
live, this little volume, all compact with significant suggestion, attests on many a
page. It exalts, inspires, comforts, and strengthens all together. It instructs by
suggestion, spiritualizes the thought by its elevating and purifying narrative, and
feeds the hungering spirit with food it is only too ready to accept and assimilate.
Those who read its pages with an eager curiosity the first time will be pretty sure
to return to them for a second slower and more meditative perusal. The book is
assuredly the promise and potency of great things unattained in the too brief life-
time of its gifted author. We heartily commend it as a book not only of remarkable
power, but as the product of a human spirit whose merely intellectual gifts were but
a fractional part of his inclusive spiritual endowments. — Boston Courier.

But it is a remarkable work — as a pathological study almost unsurpassed. It
produces the impression of a photograph from life, so vividly realistic is the treatment.
To this result the author's style, with its fidelity of microscopic detail, doubtless
contributes. — Evening Traveller.

This story by Francis Adams is one to read slowly, and then to read a second
time. It is powerfully written, full of strong suggestion, unlike, in fact, anything we
have recently read. What he would have done in the way of literary creation, had he
lived, is, of course, only a matter of conjecture. What he did we have before us in
this remarkable book. — Boston Advertiser.

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THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE
INMOST LIGHT.

BY ARTHUR MACHEN.

KEYNOTES SERIES.

i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

A couple of tales by Arthur Machen, presumably an Englishman, published
aesthetically in this country by Roberts Brothers. They are horror stories, the
horror being of the vague psychologic kind and dependent, in each case, upon a man
of science who tries to effect a change in individual personality by an operation upon
the brain cells. The implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to
probe the mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely strong
and we guarantee the " shivers " to anyone who reads them. — Hartford Courant.

For two stories of the most marvelous and improbable character, yet told with
wonderful realism and naturalness, the palm for this time will have to be awarded to
Arthur Machen, for " The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light," two stories just
published in one book. They are fitting companions to the famous stories by Edgar
Allan Poe both in matter and style. "The Great God Pan" is founded upon an
experiment made upon a girl by which she was enabled for a moment to see the god
Pan, but with most disastrous results, the most wonderful of which is revealed at the
end of the story, and which solution the reader will eagerly seek to reach. From the
first mystery or tragedy follow in rapid succession "The Inmost Light" is equally
as remarkable for its imaginative power and perfect air of probability. , Anything in
the legitimate line of psychology utterly pales before these stories of such plausibility.
Boston Home Journal.

Precisely who the great god Pan of Mr. Machen's first tale is, we did not quite
discover when we read it, or, discovering, we have forgotten ; but our impression is
that under the idea of that primitive great deity he impersonated, or meant to im-
personate, the evil influences that attach to woman, the fatality of feminine beauty,
which, like the countenance of the great god Pan, is deadly to all who behold it.
His heroine is a beautiful woman, who ruins the souls and bodies of those over whom)
she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we may say so, to those who,
love her; and to whom she is Death. Something like this, if not this exactly, is, we
take it, the interpretation of Mr. Machen's uncanny parable, which is too obscure
to justify itself as an imaginative creation and too morbid to be the production of a
healthy mind. The kind of writing which it illustrates is a bad one, and this is one
of the worst of the kind. It is not terrible, but horrible. — R. ff. S. in Mail and
Express.

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DISCORDS.

& Volume of Stories.
BY GEORGE EGERTON, author of " Keynotes."

AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION.
i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

George Egerton's new volume entitled "Discords," a collection of short stones,
Is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of the day. The collection is
really stories for story- writers. They are precisely the quality which literary folk will
wrangle over. Harold Frederic cables from London to the " New York Times " that
the book is making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the
Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George Eliot and
George Sand, is a woman's nom de plume. The extraordinary frankness with which

life in general is discussed in these stories- not unnaturally arrests attention

Lilian Whiting.

The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton, who
made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong stories called " Keynotes,"
has brought out a new book under the rather uncomfortable title of " Discords."
These stories show us pessimism run wild ; the gloomy things that can happen to a
human being are so dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author's owr
world there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter irony, which
develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all this there is a rugged
grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp
George Egerton as one of the greatest women writers of the day. "Discords" has
been called a volume of stories ; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying
episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor ending. — Boston
Traveller.

This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains of George
Egerton, the author of " Keynotes." Evidently the titles of the author's books are
selected according to musical principles. The first story in the book is "A Psycho,
logical Moment at Three Periods." It is all strength rather than sentiment. The
story of the child, of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the
mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very truth, as the writer
has so subtly analyzed her triple characters, they sadden one to think that such things
must be ; yet as they are real, they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due
time. The author betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects
the human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature maj
instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and hypnotized by the
treatment exhibited. — Courier.

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PRINCE ZALESKI.

BY M. P. SHIEL.

Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition.
i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

The three stories by M. P. Shiel, which have just been published in the
Keynotes series, make one of the most remarkable books of the time.
Prince Zaleski, who figures in each, is a striking character, most artistically
and dramatically presented. "The Race of Orven," the first story, is
one of great power, and it were hardly possible to tell it more skilfully.
" The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks" is in something the same vein,
mysterious and gruesome. It is in " S. S.," however, that the author most
fully discloses his marvellous power as a story-teller. We have read noth-
ing like it since the tales of E. A. Poe; but it is not an imitation of Poe.
We much doubt if the latter ever wrote a story so strong and thrillingly
dramatic. — Boston Advertiser.

The first of the three tales composing this little volume is entitled " The
Race of Orven," which supplies the character from whom is taken the title of
the book. The other two are, " The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks "
and "The S. S." There are three maxims on the titlepage, probably one
for each of the tales, — one from Isaiah, one from Cervantes, and one from
Sophocles, — but they are a triple key to the spirit of book altogether. The
Prince, however, rules the contents entirely, pervading them with mysticism
of every imaginable character. The US.S." tale is decidedly after the
manner of Poe, full of mysterious problems in murders and suicides, to be
treated with ingenious solutions. There is a morbid tendency running
through the entire trinity, the author seeming to invent characters and com-
plications only to exhibit his ingenuity in unravelling them, and in string-
ing on these ingenious theories the spiritual conceptions in which he is wont
to indulge his thought. But the thought is both magnetic and bold, and
rarely illusive. Hermitages, recluses, silences and funereal glooms, and the
entire family of grotesque thoughts and things, are not merely wrought into
the writer's canvas, but are his very staple, the warp and woof composing
it. It is an across-the-seas collection of conceits, skilfully strung on one
glittering thread by a matured thinker. The attempt is made to carve out
the mystery of things from the heart of the outward existence. The men and
women on whom the scalpel is made to work are real flesh-and-blood en-
tities, of such strong points of character as to be actually necessary in
developing the author's thought as much as his purpose. The book be-
longs to the increasing class that has come in with the introversive habit of
modern thought and speculation — call it spiritual or something else. —
Boston Courier.

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the Publishers,

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THE WOMAN WHO DID.

BY GRANT ALLEN.

Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition,

16mo. Cloth.. Price, $1.00.

A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and
gifted author could never have been effectively told ; for such a hand could
not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the noble,
irreproachable character of Herminia Barton. — Boston Home Journal,

"The Woman Who Did" is a remarkable and powerful story. It
increases our respect for Mr. Allen's ability, nor do we feel inclined to join
in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social insti-
tutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen's views on many
important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and to re-
spect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not convincing-
Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind and of life we
willingly concede ; but as she is presented to us by Mr. Allen, there is un-
mistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself does not detract from
the reality of the picture. — The Speaker.

In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains outbursts
of intellectual passion that places this author among the giants of the
nineteenth century. — American Newsman.

Interesting, and at times intense and powerful. — Buffalo Commercial.
No one can doubt the sincerity of the author. — Woman's Journal.

The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no one
has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion, the law,
and society. — Boston Times.

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the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

A. SXRANQE CAREER.

LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
JOHN GLADWYN JEBB.

BY HIS WIDOW.

With an Introduction by H. RIDER HAGGARD, and a por-
trait of Mr. Jebb. I2mo, cloth. Price, $1.25.

A remarkable romance of modern life. — Daily Chronicle.

Exciting to a degree. — Black and White.

Full of breathless interest. — Times.

Reads like fiction. — Daily Graphic.

Pages which will hold their readers fast to the very end. — Graphic.

A better told and more marvellous narrative of a real life was never put
into the covers of a small octavo volume. — To-Day.

As fascinating as any romance. . . . The book is of the most entranc-
ing interest. — St. James's Budget.

Those who love stories of adventure will find a volume to their taste in
the " Life and Adventures of John Gladwyn Jebb," just published, and to
which an introduction is furnished by Rider Haggard. The latter says
that rarely, if ever, in this nineteenth century, has a man lived so strange
and varied an existence as did Mr. Jebb. From the time that he came to
manhood he was a wanderer ; and how he survived the many perils of his
daily life is certainly a mystery. . . . The strange and remarkable adven-
tures of which we have an account in this volume were in Guatemala, Brazil,
in our own far West with the Indians on the plains, in mining camps in
Colorado and California, in Texas, in Cuba and Mexico, where occurred
the search for Montezuma's, or rather Guatemoc's treasure, to which Mr.
Haggard believes that Mr. Jebb held the key, but which through his death
is now forever lost. The story is one of thrilling interest from beginning
to end, the story of a born adventurer, unselfish, sanguine, romantic, of a
man too mystical and poetic in his nature for this prosaic nineteenth cen-
tury, but who, as a crusader or a knight errant, would have won distinguished
success. The volume is a notable addition to the literature of adventure.
— Boston Advertiser.

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Ushers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers9 Publications.

foam of tbe Sea.

By GERTRUDE HALL,
Author of "Far from To-day," "Allegretto," " Verses," etc.

16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

Miss Gertrude Hall's second volume of short stories, " Foam of the Sea and
Other Tales," shows the same characteristics as the first, which will be instantly
remembered under the title of " Far from To-day." They are vigorous, fanciful, in
part quaint, always thought-stirring and thoughtful. She has followed old models
somewhat in her style, and the setting of many of the tales is mediaeval. The
atmosphere of them is fascinating, so unusual and so pervading is it; and always
refined are her stories, and graceful, even with an occasional touch of grotesquerie.
And there is an underlying subtleness in them, a grasp of the problems of the
heart and the head, in short, of life, which is remarkable; and yet they, for the
most part, are romantic to a high degree, and reveal an imagination far beyond
the ordinary. " Foam of. the Sea," like " Far from To-day," is a volume of rare
tales, beautifully wrought out of the past for the delectation of the present

Of the six tales in the volume, " Powers of Darkness " alone has a wholly nine-
teenth century flavor. It is a sermon told through two lives pathetically misera-
able. "The Late Returning" is dramatic and admirably turned, strong in its
heart analysis. " Foam of the Sea " is almost archaic in its rugged simplicity,
and "Garden Deadly "(the most imaginative of the six) is beautiful in its
descriptions, weird in its setting, and curiously effective. "The Wanderers" is a
touching tale of the early Christians, and " In Battlereagh House " there is the
best character drawing.

Miss Hall is venturing along a unique line of story telling, and must win the
praise of the discriminating. — The Boston Times.

There is something in the quality of the six stories by Gertrude Hall in the
volume to which this title is given which will attract attention. They are stories
which must — some of them — be read more than once to be appreciated. They
are fascinating in their subtlety of suggestion, in their keen analysis of motive,
and in their exquisite grace of diction. There is great dramatic power in
"Powers of Darkness" and " In Battlereagh House." They are stories which
should occupy more than the idle hour. They are studies. — Boston Adver-
tiser.

She possesses a curious originality, and, what does not always accompany this
rare faculty, skill in controlling it and compelling it to take artistic forms. — Mail
and Express.

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the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

FAR FROM TO-DAY

S Uoiume of Stories

BY GERTRUDE HALL,
16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

HPHESE stories are marked with originality and power. The titles
JL are as follows : viz., Tristiane, The Sons of Philemon, Servirol,
Sylvanus, Theodolind, Shepherds.

Miss Hall has put together here a set of gracefully written tales, — tales of long
ago. They have an old-world mediaeval feeling about them, soft with intervening
distance, like the light upon some feudal castle wall, seen through the openings of
the forest. A refined fancy and many an artistic touch has been spent upon the
composition with good result. — London Bookseller.

" Although these six stories are dreams of the misty past, their morals have a
most direct bearing on the present. An author who has the soul to conceive such
stories is worthy to rank among the highest. One of our best literary critics, Mrs.
Louise Chandler Moulton, says : " I think it is a work of real genius, Homeric in
its simplicity, and beautiful exceedingly.'"

Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in the Newbtaypori Herald: —

" A volume giving evidence of surprising genius is a collection of six tales by
Gertrude Hall, called ' Far from To-day.' I recall no stories at once so powerful and
subtle as these- Their literary charm is complete, their range of learning is vast, and
their human interest is intense. ' Tristiane,' the first one, is as brilliant and ingenious,
to say the least, as the best chapter of Arthur Hardy's ' Passe Rose ; ' ' Sylvanus'
tells a heart-breaking tale, full of wild delight in hills and winds and skies, full of
pathos and poetry ; in ' The Sons of Philemon ' the Greek spirit is perfect, the
story absolutely beautiful ; 'Theodolind,' again, repeats the Norse life to the echo,
even to the very measure of the runes; and 'The Shepherds' gives another reading
to the meaning of 'The Statue and the Bust.' Portions of these stories are told
with an almost archaic simplicity, while other portions mount on great wings of
poetry, ' Far from To-day,' as the time of the stories is placed ; the hearts that
beat in them are the hearts of to-day, and each one of these stories breathes the joy
and the sorrow of life, and is rich with the beauty of the world."

From the London Academy, December 24th : —

"The six stories in the dainty volume entitled ' Far from To-day' are of imagina-
tion all compact. The American short tales, which have of late attained a wide and
deserved popularity in this country, have not been lacking in this vitalizing quality;
but the art of Mrs. Slosson and Miss Wilkins is that of imaginative realism, while
that of Miss Gertrude Hall is that of imaginative romance; theirs is the work of
impassioned observation, hers of impassioned invention. There is in her book a
fine, delicate fantasy that reminds one of Hawthorne in his sweetest moods; and
while Hawthorne had certain gifts which were all his own, the new writer ex-
hibits a certain winning tenderness in which he was generally deficient. In the
domain of pure romance it is long since we have had anything so rich in simple
beauty as is the work which is to be found between the covers of ' Far from
To-day.' "

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Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS. BOSTON. MASS

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SUPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

A245T53
1895

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